THE    AGE    OF    PERICLES 


VOL.  I. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


A   HISTORY    OP    THE 


POLITICS   AND   ARTS   OF   GREECE 


FKOM    THE 


PERSIAN  TO  THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR 


BY 


WILLIAM    WATKISS    LLOYD 


ts  TOVTO  r\v  TO  \u>piov. — THUCYD.  I.  97. 


VOL.  I 


MACMILLAN    AND     CO. 

1875 

[All  rights  reserved] 


OXFORD : 

BY    B.    PICKABD    HALL    AND    J.   H.  STACT, 
PRIHTEB8  TO  THB  UNIVERSITY. 


Sfltulj  0f  JiUttanti 

(ANN.  soc.  CENT.  QUAD.  SEC.) 

AND 

TO    THEIR    TREASURER    AND    SECRETABT 
THE     BIGHT     HON.     SIB     EDWABD     BYAN 

THIS    HISTORY 

OP    THE    MOST    FLOUBISHING    PERIOD    OF 
THE    ARTS    OP    GREECE 

IS    INSCRIBED 
(IN    THE    TWENTY-FIRST    YEAB    OF    HIS    OWN    MEMBERSHIP) 

BY 
WILLIAM  WATKISS  LLOYD 


VOL.  I. 


PEEFACE, 


THE  story  of  the  period  that  intervened  between  the  Persian 
and  the  Peloponnesian  wars  had  been  so  far  neglected  when 
Thucydides  commenced  his  history  of  the  latter,  as  to  elicit 
an  observation  that  the  records  of  its  incidents  and  the 
determination  of  their  sequence  were  alike  incomplete.  He 
supplied  in  consequence  a  connecting  summary,  the  section 
known  to  the  ancients  as  the  Pentecontaeteris  or  Pentecon- 
taetia,  from  the  number  of  years  embraced,  such  as  appeared 
sufficient  for  his  own  purpose ;  compared  however  with  our 
present  rational  requirements,  it  is,  as  might  be  expected, 
jejune  and  unsatisfactory.  The  history  of  the  arts,  which  is 
for  us  one  of  the  main  interests  of  the  period,  escapes  his 
notice  entirely;  and  yet  at  this  particular  time  a  work  of 
art  was  apt  to  have  the  significance  of  a  political  incident,  as 
its  purport  and  vicissitudes  had  no  unfrequent  bearing  on 
political  feeling.  The  life  of  the  people  during  this  happier 
and  more  tranquil  period,  was  as  much  engrossed  by  poetry 
and  the  arts  as  by  politics ;  of  the  two  interests,  at  present  so 
distinct,  each  is  found  among  Greeks  reacting  on  the  other, 
and  it  is  often  difficult  to  determine  which  is  predominant. 
Notices  dispersed  and  incidental  doubtless,  are  fortunately 
recoverable  from  other  sources,  that  go  some  way  to  supply 
what  did  not  fall  within  the  plan  of  the  historian ;  it  is  in 
the  belief  that  these  have  not  hitherto  had  full  justice  done  to 
them  as  illustrations  of  the  progressive  Hellenic  story,  that 


viii  PREFACE. 

attention  is  invited  to  yet  another  English  presentation  of 
the  history  of  Hellas. 

Again,  as  even  Thucydides  somewhat  deviates  in  his  sum- 
mary, brief  as  it  is,  from  his  declared  intention  to  adhere  to 
chronological  sequence,  the  moderns  have  for  the  most  part 
carried  the  deviation  further,  and  declining  to  deal  with  what 
hints  of  order  of  time  are  salient,  to  say  nothing  of  others 
that  if  obscure  are  discoverable  and  are  ever  the  more  valu- 
able as  more  scanty,  have  been  content  to  supplement  political 
narrative  a  little  at  random  by  chapters  that  group  and 
classify  rather  than  arrange  historically  the  characteristics  of 
the  age. 

My  own  endeavours  have  been  directed  to  make  the  most, 
but  ever  under  control  of  sober  consideration,  of  every  help 
available  to  determine  the  order  of  incidents,  and  to  dis- 
entangle confusion  that  was  indifferent  to  biographers  intent 
exclusively  on  the  illustration  of  character,  to  compilers  who 
were  more  concerned  to  be  comprehensive  than  critical,  to 
theorists  who  cared  more  for  general  philosophy  than  its 
particular  development,  to  say  nothing  of  writers  only  on  the 
look-out  for  opportunities  to  be  smart  in  the  first  place  and 
in  the  next  picturesque.  That  the  very  varied  evidence  that 
comes  under  consideration  renders  necessary  an  occasional 
and  even  a  frequent  shifting  of  point  of  view,  is  an  incon- 
venience which  must  be  accepted  if  we  would  survey  with  an 
approach  to  comprehensiveness  the  contrasted  yet  ever  im- 
portantly connected  movements  of  human  activity,  as  they 
proceed  contemporaneously  over  a  very  extended  field ;  nor  is 
it  amiss  that  the  student  should  be  thrown  upon  some  expe- 
rience which  will  only  be  irksome  at  first,  in  combining  con- 
trasted observations  ;  only  so  indeed  may  we  acquire  the 
instructive  apprehension  of  the  life  Hellenic,  in  all  the  multi- 
fariousness  of  interests  that  was  consistent  with  its  unrivalled 
concentration  of  power. 

Into   every  history   and   all   history  conjecture   enters  of 


PREFACE.  ix 

necessity  very  largely  indeed,  and  even  when  testimonies  and 
materials  are  most  abundant,  the  writer  who  deals  with  them 
has  a  sufficient  hurden  of  responsibility ;  an  attempt  to  evade 
it  will  only  condemn  him  to  overload  his  pages  with  discus- 
sions and  rejoinders,  to  conclude  nothing  and  vex  his  readers 
by  leaving  them  the  very  work — happy  if  not  further  con- 
fused— which  they  justly  look  to  him  to  set  well  in  advance. 
Even  this,  however,  is  perhaps  more  tolerable  than  the  tyranny 
of  a  quiet  dogmatism,  which  silently  tightens  every  knot 
while  assuming  to  untie  it,  or  the  facile  scepticism  that  cuts 
all  indiscriminately  and  destroys  the  web  at  once,  by  dis- 
allowing the  '  historical  character '  of  every  incident  of 
which  the  record  can  by  any  possibility,  however  remote, 
involve  an  element  of  error. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  materials  of  ancient 
history  could  be  relied  on  more  positively  than  has  been 
justified  in  such  cases  as  the  Waterloo  campaign  and  the 
diplomatic  and  military  incidents  of  the  Crimean  war ;  and 
an  admission  of  not  mere  liability  to  error,  but  of  general 
uncertainty  in  history,  must  be  taken  once  for  all  as  standing 
in  lieu  of  constantly  intercalated  hesitations.  The  utmost 
positiveness  of  the  writer's  expressions  will  then  be  under- 
stood to  mark  in  any  case  only  his  appreciation  of  highest 
probability,  and  any  less  positive  tones  must  be  estimated 
relatively  to  this  primary  intimation.  If  appropriate  gra- 
duations of  conviction  have  been  marked  as  recognisably  as 
it  is  hoped,  the  writer  may  claim  to  be  credited  conditionally 
with  having  regulated  them  with  reference  to  comparisons 
and  enquiries  which  he  often  spares  to  set  down  in  tedious 
detail, — whether  or  not  he  is  so  happy  as  to  gain  confidence 
further  for  a  portion  of  that  sagacity  which  it  should  be  the 
great  aim  of  one  who  is  bound  to  estimate  human  motives, 
faculties  and  dispositions,  to  acquire. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  reader  is  entitled  to  full  liberty  of 
judgment ;  to  the  same  that  he  is  driven  upon  perforce  when 


x  PREFACE. 

he  has  to  arbitrate  betweeen  the  representations  of  Cromwell 
by  Carlyle  and  by  Pope,  not  to  say  Hutchinson  and  Ludlow ; 
of  Henry  VIII,  as  reported  by  Froude,  or  by  Cavendish  and 
Shakespeare;  of  the  character  and  designs  of  Julius  Caesar, 
as  seen  by  Cicero,  or  as  conceived  by  Mommsen;  the  utmost 
the  author  can  claim  of  him  is  that  in  questioning  a  decision 
he  will  not  be  too  hastily  credulous  of  his  own. 

To  return  to  Thucydides :  the  same  liability  that  he  knew 
and  repudiated  of  a  history  of  the  past  to  be  written  with 
less  consideration  for  either  past  or  future  than  for  a  bearing 
on  present  politics,  has  been  and  is  a  besetting  liability  of 
Greek  history  still ;  in  a  certain  qualified  sense  the  liability 
must  be  admitted,  for  it  cannot  be  escaped  from.  Some  of 
the  strongest  light  that  falls  on  ancient  history,  is  ever 
reflected  for  us  from  modern  contemporary  politics,  and 
modern  eyes  are  of  necessity  attracted  to  these  most  highly 
illuminated  spots.  It  is  however  the  opprobrium  of  the 
historian  if  he  regards  such  accidental  lights  alone,  and 
worse  if  he  is  so  misled  as  to  accept  as  realities  the  colours 
which  may  be  thrown  by  them,  but  are  only  due  to  the 
passions  and  the  prejudices  of  the  day. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

Introductory- 

Limits  of  the  present  history. — The  interval  of  fifty  years  between  those 
of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides. — Preliminary  survey  of  earlier  history 
of  Greece. — The  Homeric  epos  as  an  historical  monument. — Antiquity 
and  development  of  Hellenic  language. — Change  from  Homeric  to  his- 
toric Hellas. — Contrasts  of  Achaian  and  Hellenic  periods. — B.  0. 1066  (?). 
Epoch  of  migrations  and  revolutions. — Return  of  the  Heracleids. — Cen- 
turies of  colonisation  East  and  West. — Grouping  of  Aeolian,  Ionian, 
and  Dorian  tribes. — B.C.  800-700.  The  century  of  cyclic  poets  and 
poetry. — B.C.  776.  Epoch  of  first  Olympiad  :  its  significance. — B.C.  775. 
Arctinus  author  of  Aethiopis.  —  B.C.  fo8.  Archilochus  of  Paros.  — 
B.C.  700-600.  Century  of  elegiac  and  lost  lyric  poetry :  the  age  of  the 
tyrants. — B.C.  594.  The  legislation  of  Solon :  republics  throughout 
Hellas.  Development  of  plastic  arts  and  architecture.  —  B.C.  540. 
Extension  of  Persian  empire  over  Asia  Minor.  —  B.C.  499.  Ionian 
revolt :  the  Athenians  burn  Sardis. — B.C.  490.  Invasion  of  Attica  by 
the  Persians  :  battle  of  Marathon. — B.C.  480.  Second  invasion  of  Attica : 
battle  of  Salamis  ...........  I 

CHAPTER    I. 

The  results  of  Salamis. — The  stratagem  of  Themistooles. 

B.C.  480;  Ol.  75.  r. 

Council  of  Xerxes  after  the  battle. — Disappearance  of  Persian  fleet. — 
Policy  and  stratagem  of  Themistocles. — Dedications  and  division  of  the 
spoils. — Dissensions  of  Mardonius  and  Artabazus. — Xerxes  in  Thessaly  19 

CHAPTER    II. 

The  retreat  of  Xerxes. — Artabazus  in  Thrace. — Themistocles  at  Sparta. 

B.C.  480;  01.  75.  i. 
Retreat  of  Xerxes  to  the  Hellespont. — Distress  of  his  escort  in  Thrace. — 

Return  of  Artabazus. — His  capture  of  Olynthus. — Repulse  at  Potidaea. 

— Rivalry  of  Athens  and  Aegina. — Themistocles  slighted  by  the  allies. 

— Extraordinary  honours  to  Themistocles  at  Sparta       .         .         .         .30 


zu 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    III. 

Mardordua  in  Boeotia  and  Attica. — Spirit  and  temper  of  Athenians 
and  Spartans. 

B.C.  479,  Spring;  Ol.  75.  i,  2. 

Ionian  envoys  to  Sparta  and  the  fleet. — Persian  fleet  at  Samoa. — Plans  of 
Mardonius  for  a  land  campaign. — Attempted  negotiations  with  Athens. 
Alexander  the  Macedonian. — Mardonius  re-enters  Attica. — Renews 
negotiations  with  Athenians. — Athenian  pressure  on  the  Spartans. — 
Their  force  at  last  put  in  motion. — Death  of  Lycides  in  tumult  at 
Salamis  ............  4* 

CHAPTER    IV. 

The  patriotic   army  in   Boeotia. — The   death   of  Masistius. — Persian 

preparations  for  final  conquest. 

B.C.  479,  September ;  01.  75.  2. 

Halt  of  Greeks  at  the  isthmus. — Mardonius  retires  to  Boeotia. — Encamps 
on  the  Asopus. — Episode  of  Medising  Phocians. — The  entertainment  of 
Persians  by  Attaginus  at  Thebes; — Greek  army  appears  on  slopes  of 
Cithaeron. — Athenian  bowmen  opposed  to  Persian  cavalry. — Death 
of  Masistius. — Station  of  the  Greeks. — They  move  towards  Plataea. — 
Their  order  of  battle  and  estimated  numbers. — Relative  advantages  of 
Greeks  and  Persians. — The  seer  Tisamenus. — Impatience  of  Mardonius 
and  jealousy  of  Artabazus. — Preparations  for  battle  on  both  sides  .  59 

CHAPTER  V  (VI). 

The  decisive  battle  of  Flataea. — The  death  of  Mardonius. 

B.C.  479,  September  :  01.  75.  a. 

Embarrassment  of  the  Greek  forces. — Proposed  change  of  ground. — Obsti- 
nacy of  Amompharetus. — The  Greek  army  separated. — Elation  of  Mar- 
donius at  their  supposed  flight. — Disorderly  Persian  attack. — Conflict 
with  the  Lacedaemonians. — Death  of  Mardonius. — Conflict  of  Athenians 
and  Thebans. — Retirement  of  Artabazus  with  large  force  without 
engaging. — Capture  of  the  Persian  camp.  —  Immense  slaughter  and 
•poil 84 

CHAPTER   VII. 
The  spoils  of  Plataea. — The  glory  of  Pausanias. 

B.C.  479,  Autumn;  Ol.  75.  a. 

Distribution  of  spoils  and  honours. — Wealth  and  Sparta. — Irony  of  Pau- 
sanias on  Persian  luxury. — Sacrifices  for  deliverance  with   fire  from 
Delphi. — Neutralisation  of  Plataea. — Surrender  of  Thebes. — Institution 
.    of  commemorative  festival  at  Plataea 100 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

CHAPTER   VIH. 

The  battle  of  Mycale. — The  final  retirement  of  Xerxes. 
B.C.  479  ;  01.  75.  i  and  2. 

The  decisive  results  of  the  battle  of  Plataea. — Greek  fleet  renews  activity. 
— Envoys  from  Samos  urge  assistance  to  revolt  of  Ionia. — Leotychides 
assents. — Debarkation  of  Greeks  at  Mycale. — Decisive  Greek  victory. — 
General  liberation  of  Greeks  of  Asian  coast  and  the  islands. — Dissen- 
sions among  defeated  commanders. — Xerxes  finally  retires  from  Sardis 
to  Susa.  .  .  t 114 

CHAPTER    IX. 

The  capture  of  Sestos. — Xanthippus  and  Artayctes. 
B.C.  479 ;  01.  75.  2. 

Prospects  of  lonians  as  to  future  defence. — Discouraging  views  of  Lace- 
daemonians.— Zeal  of  the  Athenians. — Greek  fleet  to  the  Hellespont. — 
Leotychides  retires  with  the  Peloponnesian  allies. — Siege  of  Sestos. — 
Local  legend  of  Protesilaus. — Sestos  surrenders  to  Xanthippus. — Cruel 
treatment  of  Artayctes 128 

CHAPTER    X. 

Athens  rewallcd. — The  conceptions  and  conduct  of  Themistocles. 
B.C.  478 ;  01.  75.  i  and  3. 

Conclusion  of  history  of  Herodotus. — Authorities  for  the  interval  of  fifty 
years — the  Pentecontaeteris — before  the  commencement  of  Thucydides. 
— Athens  reoccupied ;  Themistocles  resumes  his  earlier  plans  for  fortifi- 
cation and  enlargement  of  Piraeus. — Dorian  jealousy  of  the  fortification 
of  Athens. — Representations  of  Sparta. — Astute  diplomacy  of  Themis- 
tocles.— The  Lacedaemonians  foiled 139 

CHAPTER    XL 

Leotychides  in  Thessaly. — The  conditions  of  kingship  at  Sparta. 
B.C.  478  ;  Ol.  75.  2  and  3. 

Leotychides  acts  against  the  Aleuadae  in  Thessaly. — The  Athenian  fleet 
in  the  Pagasaean  gulf. — Uncertain  results  of  the  expedition. — Leoty- 
chides exiled  on  charge  of  accepting  bribes,  and  never  recalled. — Preca- 
rious position  of  Spartan  kings  152 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XII. 

Pausanias  and  Aristides  at  Byzantium. — Athenian  acceptance  of  the 

active  leadership  of  Hellas. 

B.C.  477  ;  Ol.  75.  3  and  4. 

Combined  Lacedaemonian  and  Athenian  fleet  before  Byzantium. — Its 
capture. — Second  great  success  of  Pausanias. — Arrogance  of  Pausanias 
disgusts  the  allies. — His  intrigues  with  Persia. — Correspondence  with 
Xerxes. — Contrasted  demeanour  of  Aristides. — Samians  and  Chians 
break  with  Pausanias. — He  is  recalled  through  complaints  of  allies. — 
Athens  assumes  the  hegemony  of  Hellas  as  committed  to  continued 
hostilities  against  Persia 160 

CHAPTER    XIH. 

Dorian  and  Ionian  genius  and  genealogy. 

Characteristics  of  Sparta  moulded  by  circumstances  and  institutions. — In 
contrast  to  those  of  commercial  Dorians  and  of  the  earlier  stock. — 
Dorian,  Aeolian,  and  Ionian  tribal  distinctions. — Language  as  clue  to 
earlier  relations. — Dorism  a  qualified  Aeolism,  as  Attic  dialect  a  quali- 
fied Ionic. — Meaning  of  the  assertion  of  Herodotus  that  the  Athenians 
were  a  Pelasgic  race  as  contrasted  with  the  Hellenic  Lacedaemonians. 
— Pelasgism  the  basis  of  both  Ionian  and  Aeolian  antiquity. — Hel- 
lenism expresses  the  predominant  influence  of  a  peculiarly  gifted 
section. — By  varied  receptiveness  of  thid  influence,  other  sections  became, 
in  the  phrase  of  Herodotus,  Hellenised. — Contingencies  which  favoured 
the  distinguished  development  of  the  Athenians 171 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

The  confederation  under  leadership  of  Athens. — The  assessment  of 
Aristides. — The  final  recall  and  disgrace  of  Pausanias. 

B.C.  476 ;  01.  75.  4,  and  76. 

The  early  rivalry  of  Aristides  and  Themistocles. — Subsequent  alliance. — 
Characteristics  of  Cimon. — Institution  of  a  common  treasure  for  the 
allies  under  presidency  of  Athens. — Contributions  assessed  by  Aristides 
with  general  approval. — Restlessness  of  Pausanias. — Reappears  at  the 
fleet. — Is  again  summarily  recalled  to  Sparta. — Is  charged  and  ac- 
quitted, but  deprived  of  public  influence  184 

CHAPTER    XV. 

Athenian  prosecution  of  the  war. — Cimon  in  Thrace. 

B.C.  476 ;  01.  75.  4,  and  76.  i. 

Operations  of  Cimon  in  Thrace. — Capture  of  Eion. — Traditional  Athenian 
claims  in  this  quarter. — Thracian  connections  of  Peisistratun,  Miltiadeo, 
and  the  historian  Thucydidea 197 


CONTENTS.  xv 

CHAPTER    XVI. 
The  development  of  Athenian  democracy. 

Authority  and  services  of  the  Areopagus  during  the  Persian  war. — The 
elements  of  democratical  constitution  in  the  legislation  of  Solon. — Con- 
tests of  class  interests  gave  opportunity  for  the  tyranny  of  Peisistratua. 
More  fundamental  reform  of  the  democracy  by  Cleisthenes.  —  The 
Persian  war  rendered  extension  of  the  full  franchise  to  every  freeman 
inevitable. — A  germ  of  oligarchical  aud  even  tyrannous  reaction  always 
ineradicable. — Claims  of  Eupatrids  to  heroic  ancestry  ....  207 

CHAPTER    XVII. 

Poetry,  lyrio  and  dramatic,  in  the  age  of  Themistocles :  Pindar,  Phry- 
niohus,  Aeschylus. 

6.0.476;  01.  76.  i. 

First  recurrence  of  Olympic  games  after  the  Persian  war. — Hiero  of  Syra- 
cuse and  Themistocles. — The  acme  of  Pindar  and  Simonides. — The 
principle  of  liturgies  and  corrective  taxation  in  reference  to  the  arts. — 
Themistocles  a  choragus. — Earlier  progress  of  the  drama. — Epicharmus, 
Phormis,  Thespis. — The  drama,  tragic  and  satyric. — The  Phoenissae  of 
Phrynichus. — Innovations  of  Aeschylus 220 

CHAPTER    XVni. 

Architecture  and  sculpture  in  the  age  of  Themistocles. 
The  first  properly  constructed  Greek  theatre,  B.C.  499. — Its  distribution  in 
relation  to  the  represented  drama. — Temple  architecture. — Earlier  Doric 
style  of  Aegina  and  Corinth. — Characteristics  of  Doric  architecture. — 
Hellenic  obligations  to  Aegypt. — Analogies  and  contrasts  of  Doric  and 
Ionic  orders. — Early  appreciation  of  the  value  and  principles  of  archi- 
tectural proportion. — Coloured  architectural  members. — Archaic  schools 
of  sculpture. — Colossal  statues. — Portrait  statues  of  athletes. — Sculptural 
compositions  of  the  Aeginetan  pediments. — Innovations  of  Pythagoras 
of  Rhegium  and  Myron. — Importance  of  Ageladas  of  Argos  .  .  .  339 

CHAPTER    XIX. 
A  decade  of  political  and  party  developments. 

B.C.  476-466. 

Dearth  of  records  of  particular  incidents  during  this  period. — The  period 
to  be  interpreted  by  its  sequel. — Gradual  subordination  of  allies  to 
Athenian  authority. — Hellenic  passion  for  civic  autonomy. — The  trea- 
sury of  the  confederacy  removed  from  Delos  to  Athens. — Cordial  alliance 
with  Sparta  promoted  by  Cimon. — The  previsions  of  Themistocles. — His 
policy  inherited  and  administered  by  Pericles 257 


xvi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

The  political  and  poetical  scope  of  the  Fersae  of  Aeschylus. 

B.C.  473-472- 

The  relation  of  the  Persae  to  the  Phoenissae  of  Phrynichus. — Inevitable 
reference  of  the  play  to  the  glory  though  not  to  the  name  of  Themis- 
tocles. — Revival  of  interest  by  recent  defeat  of  Carthaginians  by  Hiero. 
— The  Phineus,  the  first  play  of  the  tetralogy,  involved  a  reference  to 
the  victory  at  Artemisium. — Recognised  obligations  of  Athens  on  that 
occasion  to  the  Boreads,  the  rescuers  of  Phineus  (Herod,  vii.  189). — 
Glaucus  of  Potniae,  the  third  play,  had  reference  to  the  final  battle  of 
Plataea,  in  its  purport  and  in  site  of  Potniae,  covered  by  the  battle- 
field.— The  satyric  play,  Prometheus,  the  fire-bringer. — Its  reference  to 
renewal  of  pure  fire  after  the  defeat  of  the  Persians. — The  warnings 
of  the  poet 269 

CHAPTER    XXI. 

Ostracism  of  Themistocles. — Cixnon  at  Soyros. 

B.C.  471-470. 

Influence  of  Cimon  and  his  party  becomes  preponderant  at  Athens. — 
Themistocles  is  ostracised. — Ostracism  and  its  abuse. — Pride  and  inde- 
pendence of  Themistocles. — Popular  arts  of  his  rival. — Cimon  occupies 
Scyros. — Modern  appreciation  of  the  statesmanship  applicable  to  annex- 
ations.— Recovery  of  the  relics  of  Theseus.  —  The  Theseum  and  its 
artistic  enrichments. — The  Triptolemus  of  Sophocles  and  its  purport. — 
First  public  activity  of  Pericles. — Death  of  Aristides. — Interpretation 
of  an  allusion  in  the  'Seven  against  Thebes'  of  Aeschylus  .  .  .276. 

CHAPTER    XXH. 

Painting,  rudimentary  and  advanced. — Polygnotus. 

B.C.  467. 

Subordinate  position  of  painting  in  Hellas  relatively  to  sculpture. — Traces 
of  coloured  design  in  Homeric  poetry. — Independent  development  of  art 
by  the  Greeks. — Traditional  commencement  of  painting  as  illustrated 
by  the  vases. — Painting  proper  begins  with  Polygnotus.  —  His  style 
simple,  severe  and  refined. — His  great  compositions  at  Delphi,  their 
ordination  and  significance. — Micon,  Panaenus 393 

CHAPTER    XXHI. 

Themistocles  in  Peloponnesus. 

Uneasinem  at  Sparta  from  restlessness  of  Pausanias. — Themistocles  at 
Argofl. — Hia  probable  connection  with  opposition  to  Sparta  developed 
in  Peloponnesus. — The  recovery  of  Argos. — Subversion  of  Mycenae  .  308 


CONTENTS.  xvii 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

The  Seven  against  Thebes  of  Aeschylus. 
467  B.C. 

The  tetralogy — Laius,  Oedipus,  the  Seven  against  Thebes,  the  Sphinx  a 
Satyric  drama. — The  principle  of  continuous  hereditary  disposition  in 
Greek  tragedy. — Its  interpretation  as  fate. — The  warlike  drama  an  echo 
of  recommencing  intestine  dissensions  in  Hellas. — The  spirit  of  Theban 
mythology 315 

CHAPTER    XXV. 

The  catastrophe  of  Pausanias  and  flight  of  Themistoclea. 
8.0.467-466;  01.  78.  2. 

Sparta  regains  control  of  Peloponnesus. — Intrigues  of  Pausanias  among 
helots  and  with  Persia. — Themistocles  declines  participation. — Ephors 
detect  and  destroy  Pansanias. — Endeavour  to  implicate  Themistocles. — 
He  flies  to  Corcyra. — The  grounds  of  his  interest  in  the  island  .  .321 

CHAPTER    XXVI. 

Themistocles  the  Prometheus  Desmotes  of  Aeschylus. 

'  The  Prometheus  Bound,'  the  most  characteristic  of  the  plays  of  Aeschylus. 
— Its  date  unrecorded. — Presumable  reflection  of  the  services  and  re- 
quital of  Themistocles. — Contrasted  with  Faust.  —  The  theology  of 
Aeschylus. — The  more  comprehensive  scope  of  the  Prometheus  .  .  329 


CHAPTER    XXVH. 

The  first  contumacy  of  Athenian  allies. — Administration  of  Cimon. 
B.C.  465  ;  01.  78.  3-4. 

The  story  of  the  flight  of  Themistocles. — Takes  refuge  at  Epirus. — Pur- 
sued by  Lacedaemonians,  again  disappears. —  Simultaneous  revolt  of 
Thasos  and  Naxos. — Athenian  colony  to  Nine-ways  on  the  Strymon. — 
Earlier  story  of  Naxos. — Probability  that  the  revolt  had  been  concerted 
with  Pausanias. —  Naxos  captured  forfeits  autonomy.  —  Cimon  before 
Phaselis  in  Lycia. — Great  victory  over  the  Persians  on  the  Eurymedon. 
The  Strymonian  colony  destroyed  by  conflict  with  the  Thracians  at 
Drabescus. — Cimon  establishes  the  siege  of  Thasos  after  destruction  of 
its  fleet 339 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

Themistocles  in  Persia. — His  death. 
B.C.  464. 

Xerxes  murdered. — Authority  of  Artabanus  as  regent. — He  is  killed  by 
Artaxerxes. — Arrival  of  Theinistocles  at  Susa. — Story  of  his  escape 
from  Epirus. — His  reception  and  cordial  entertainment  by  Artaxerxes. 
— His  characteristics  according  to  Thucydides. — IB  established  at  Mag- 
nesia.— Probable  adviser  of  the  Persian  policy  on  Greek  frontier. — 
Regard  for  his  memory  at  Athens 353 

CHAPTER    XXIX. 

The  seventy-ninth  Olympiad. — Corinthian  and  Rhodian  victors. 
B.C.  464. 

Odes  written  by  Pindar  for  a  Corinthian  victor.  —  Characteristics  of 
Corinth,  as  wealthy  commercial  port  and  as  seat  of  an  oligarchy. — 
Aristocratic  athleticism. — Diagoras  of  Rhodes,  and  victors  of  his  family. 
— Their  statues  at  Olympia. — Change  of  opinion  supervening  relatively 
to  exaggerated  athleticism 365 

CHAPTER    XXX. 

The  rise  of  Pericles. — Revolt  of  the  Helots.— Surrender  of  Thasos. 
B.O.  464-3. 

Pericles  becomes  conspicuous  in  politics.  —  Continued  development  of 
Athenian  democracy. — The  ambiguous  attitude  of  Cimon. — The  institu- 
tion of  the  theoricon. — Spartans  promise  aid  to  Thasos. — Prevented  by 
earthquake  and  revolt  of  the  helots. — Thasos  surrenders. — Cimon  ac- 
cused on  account  of  his  conduct  in  the  war  371 

CHAPTER    XXXI. 

Ephialtes   and   the    democracy. — Athenians    before    Ithome. — Cimon 

ostracised. 

B.C.  461. 

Acquittal  of  Cimon. — la  unable  to  countervail  democratic  policy  of  Ephi- 
altes.— Succeeds  in  proposal  to  assist  Sparta  with  auxiliary  force. — 
Jealousy  of  the  force  conceived  by  Lacedaemonians  who  dismiss  it. — 
Indignation  at  Athens. — Cimon  returns  and  is  ostracised  .  .  .  381 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES. 

B.C.      480-461. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


THE  subject-matter  of  the  ensuing  history  is  comprised 
in  the  fifty  years  that  intervene  between  the  repulse  of 
the  invasion  of  Greece  by  Xerxes  and  the  outbreak  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  —  the  interval  therefore  between  the 
closing  events  of  the  history  of  Herodotus  and  the  opening 
of  that  of  Thucydides.  A  certain  overlap  is  admitted  at 
either  end  for  the  sake  of  more  distinctly  marking  the 
connection  with  the  two  great  continuous  histories. 

The  political  events  that  occupied  these  years,  though 
anything  but  unimportant,  were  yet,  even  in  antiquity, 
not  made  the  subject  of  any  special  narrative,  the  more 
momentous  struggles  and  wars  of  the  adjacent  periods 
withdrawing  attention  from  them.  The  quarrels  that  oc- 
curred within  this  period  and  led  to  open  conflicts  were, 
though  all  under  a  main  drifting  influence,  short  and  dis- 
connected ;  and  it  may  therefore  be  considered  as,  on  the 
whole,  an  oasis  of  peace  in  the  midst  of  surrounding 
devastation  and  disorder. 

But  it  was  within  this  period  that  all  the  germs  were 
deposited  which  sprang  into  such  rank  vitality  afterwards. 
The  predominance  of  Athens  was  then  advancing  to  con- 
solidation, and  already  giving  signs  of  that  vigour  which 
was  to  be  shown  in  conflict  with  the  animosities  and  dis- 
contents among  which  it  was  growing  up,  and  the  growth 

B 


2  INTRODUCTORY. 

of  which,  however  latent,  was  an  historical  event  as  im- 
portant as  their  manifestation  in  virulent  activity,  or  even 
more  so. 

The  most  salient  manifestation  of  human  activity  how- 
ever within  that  period  was  the  marvellous  attainment  to 
unrivalled  perfection  of  the  most  refined  arts  and  culture 
of  civilised  life, — the  acme  of  the  plastic,  poetic,  and 
generally  intellectual  arts,  and  the  securing-  of  the  con- 
ditions of  continued  progress  to  the  abstract  sciences  and 
speculative  philosophy. 

A  material  exponent  of  this  full  bloom  of  the  best  faculties 
of  man  is  the  single  building  of  the  temple  of  Athene — 
the  Parthenon;  the  description  of  this  and  all  its  adjuncts, 
together  with  the  actual  remains,  attest  that  sculpture 
and  architecture  then  reached  a  perfection  that  has  never 
been  rivalled  since,  even  singly,  not  to  say  conjointly,  in 
respect  of  touching  the  utmost  point  of  which  either  is 
susceptible.  The  consent  of  antiquity  adjudged  the  palm 
to  Pheidias  above  all  other  sculptors,  and  sufficient  frag- 
ments of  his  works  are  preserved  to  happily  attest  the 
truth  and  value  of  such  an  assignment.  If  all  evidence  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  age  were  lost  but  these  memorials, 
they  would  be  sufficient  to  indicate  a  pitch  of  civilised  re- 
finement that  has  never  since  been  surpassed;  which  may 
have  been  more  or  less  partial  and  exclusive,  but  which 
to  have  been  reached  at  all,  especially  in  the  midst  of  a 
democracy,  is  sufficient  to  preclude  despair  for  the  capabili- 
ties and  progressive  hopes  of  humanity. 

And,  as  if  grouped  around  this  central  symbol,  we  have 
no  insufficient  portraitures  of  the  statesmen  who  prepared  for 
and  perfected  such  achievements — of  Aristides,  Themistocles, 
K|ihialtes,  Cimon,  Pericles;  we  have  lively  delineations  of 
the  Athenians  themselves — the  demus — so  highly  and  ener- 
getically endowed,  whatever  the  defects,  the  miserable  follies, 
the  shameful  faults  with  which  the  entire  people,  as  if  repre- 


ATHENS  THE  CENTRE  OF  HISTORIC  HELLAS.     3 

sentative  of  the  character  of  so  many  an  individual  man  of 
genius,  was  at  the  same  time  chargeable. 

We  have  then,  preserved  most  happily,  a  body  of  literature 
— invaluable,  however  relatively  small  a  salvage  from  a 
wreck  of  incomparable  abundance — which  gives  us  the  still 
living  words  that  rung  in  the  ears  of  those  generations,  to 
amuse  or  to  elevate,  for  encouragement  or  rebuke.  Eupolis 
and  Cratinus  are  lost,  but  Aristophanes  remains  to  tell  us, 
and  to  exemplify  to  us  also,  the  best  and  the  worst  of  the 
times.  The  last  echoes  of  lyric  poetry,  dying  out  in  the 
remoter  odes  of  Pindar,  are  renewed  in  the  choruses  of  the 
theatre  ;  and,  while  other  inferior  dramatists  still  live  only 
in  renown,  though  not  inconsiderable  renown,  the  great 
triad  of  tragic  dramatists — Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euri- 
pides—are not  unworthily,  however  scantily,  represented  in 
their  extant  tragedies. 

To  Athens  in  this  age,  as  to  a  centre,  was  attracted  all 
that  profound  reflection  had  been  maturing  throughout 
Hellas,  and  her  claim  to  be  the  host  of  the  best  foreign 
wits  was  approved  by  her  constant  production  among  her 
own  citizens  of  the  crowning  intelligence.  The  crude, 
inaccurate,  or  sophisticated  speculations  of  Ionia  and  Italy 
found  their  correction  here ;  and  already  the  genius  of 
Socrates  was  abroad,  which  was  to  mould  for  all  time  the 
acutest  and  noblest  exercise  of  human  thought. 

The  rapidity  with  which  human  faculties  at  this  period 
pushed  forward  into  bloom  is  as  remarkable  as  the  perfection 
which  they  attained.  Accordingly,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases, 
the  characteristics  of  the  anterior  time  are  by  no  means 
utterly  obliterated  in  the  new.  We  must  accustom  ourselves 
to  regard  the  sculptures  of  Aegina  and  of  the  Parthenon  as 
possibly  contemporary  works — even  as  Perugino  not  merely 
preceded  and  taught  but  survived  Rafael — for  the  contrast 
is  scarcely  so  great  as  between  the  almost  childlike  playfulness 
and  devoutness  of  Herodotus,  and  the  tone  of  his  contemporary, 

B  2 


4  INTRODUCTORY. 

the  sedate  and  statesmanlike  Thucydides.  Herodotus  is  in 
many  respects  more  near  to  the  people  than  Thucydides,  in 
his  fondness  for  the  picturesque,  which  disinclines  him  to 
reject  a  fabulous  story  too  expressive  of  his  purpose  to  be 
put  very  strictly  to  the  test,  and  in  his  willingness  to  wander 
somewhat  far  afield  to  obtain  it;  but  he  is  at  the  same 
time  distinguished  by  a  larger  and  more  general  geogra- 
phical and  chronological  •  scope,  and  seems  to  belong  to  a 
period  when  Greece  was  still  only  in  course  of  assuming  its 
absolute  and  separate  individuality.  His  history  collects  the 
scattered  rays  of  historic  interest  which,  when  it  concludes, 
are  for  a  period  to  be  restricted  within  Hellenic  limits,  and 
ultimately  brought  to  a  focus  at  Athens. 

If  we  are  to  understand  the  period  which  we  are  about  to 
consider  in  detail,  we  must  first  take  a  somewhat  wider 
preliminary  survey.  This  could  only  be  done  with  complete- 
ness by  the  aid  of  histories  equally  detailed  for  the  antecedent 
periods ;  but  it  may,  as  indeed  it  must,  suffice  here  to  give 
an  introductory  sketch  of  the  more  remotely  anterior  inci- 
dents,— so  far  as  these  will  not  offer  themselves  more  readily 
for  recapitulation  afterwards, — and  those  from  which  our 
narrative  actually  starts. 

Even  more  necessary  is  it  to  adduce  some  notice  of  the 
previous  developments  of  Greek  genius,  as  demonstrating  the 
native  endowments  of  the  race ;  of  what  had  been  already 
achieved  and  long  in  familiar  possession,  and  of  what  early 
promise  the  achievements  of  this  period  were  the  maturity. 
Surprising  and  brilliant  as  our  period  is,  it  is  but  one  in 
succession  to  several  others  in  many  respects  still  more 
surprising;  and  conspicuous  as  Athens  now  appears,  the  city 
does  but  come  forward  as  continuing  a  line  of  glories  to  which 
she  had  heretofore  scarcely  contributed,  and  during  the  course 
of  which  she  was  lost  in  a  crowd,  or  all  but  nameless. 

The  Homeric  epos — the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  conjoined — 
stands  at  the  very  commencement  of  Greek  monumental 


THE  HOMERIC  EPOS  AN  HISTORIC  MONUMENT.  5 

records,  and  is  not  only  the  greatest  of  all  Greek,  but,  it 
must  be  said,  the  greatest  of  all  works  of  art  whatever. 
There  are  two  questions  of  date  concerned  with  it,  and  both 
lie  far  back  in  indefinite  centuries,  beyond  the  commence- 
ment of  even  plausible  history.  The  question  of  the  date  of 
the  poetry  is  one,  and  that  of  the  time  when  the  state  of 
Greece  most  nearly  corresponded  to  the  general  aspect 
given  by  the  poems,  is  another.  That  such  a  general 
correspondence  did  once  exist,  and  even  in  respect  of 
confederacies  more  or  less  comprehensive  warring  against 
the  north-eastern  districts  of  Asia  Minor,  I  do  not  doubt, 
though  I  cannot  pause  to  argue  it  at  length ;  that  the  poem 
was  reduced  to  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  it  by  the 
genius  of  one  man — a  single  Homer  being  conceivable,  but 
scarcely  a  multitude — I  doubt  as  little;  but  the  question 
remains  still  as  to  what  stores  of  scattered  materials,  more 
or  less  extensive,  may  not  have  been  prepared  to  his  hand ; 
nay,  whether  the  latest  poet  may  not  have  been  under  the 
same  obligations,  or  something  like  them,  that  Berni  or 
Dryden  owed  to  Boiardo  or  Chaucer,  or  that  Goethe  owed  to 
the  epic  fable  of  the  middle  ages. 

As  the  work  has  been  so  happily  handed  down  to  us,  it 
is  unrivalled  in  expressiveness  of  language  and  rhythm,  and 
in  beauty  of  versification;  a  perfect  model  of  construction; 
unsurpassed  in  natural  description  by  sea  and  land ;  while  in 
personal  portraiture,  in  variety  and  distinctness  of  characteri- 
sation, in  the  definition  of  sentiment  and  all  the  shades  and 
colours  of  moral  good  and  evil,  Homer  may  have  a  rival  in 
Shakespear,  but  in  Shakespear  alone.  In  this  poem  we  have 
all  the  conditions  anticipated  in  epithet  or  description,  of  the 
perfection  of  plastic  and  imaginative  art ;  and  finally,  a 
mastery  of  the  problem  of  raising  all  natural  incidents  and 
characteristic  human  endowments  to  a  height  of  more  than 
experienced  idealisation,  without  "ever  withdrawing  the  action 
from  our  closest  and  liveliest  sympathies. 


6  INTRODUCTORY. 

The  mere  language  by  which  all  this  is  preserved  has 
itself  the  characteristics  of  a  work  of  consummate  art. 
For  anything  that  has  yet  been  discovered,  we  may  con- 
sider the  proximate  roots  of  the  Greek  of  Homer  to  be  as 
near  the  origin  of  language  as  any  others,  though  doubt- 
less still  very  remote.  If  we  were  to  give  in  to  the  exclusive 
influence  arrogated  to  so-called  phonetic  corruption  and  decay 
in  changing  and  modelling  language  as  applicable  to  ancient 
Greek,  we  should  indeed  forfeit  the  most  valuable  lesson  of 
etymology.  Originally  the  urgent  need  of  language  was  to 
express — to  express  feeling  as  well  as  thought — and  it  is  for 
expression  that  it  is  ever  struggling.  Between  the  varieties 
due  to  the  eagerness  of  those  muscular  sensations  which  are 
incident  to  the  production  of  sounds,  and  the  visible  facial 
movements  by  which  they  are  accompanied,  and  with  which 
they  are  connected  in  the  mind  of  the  listener,  there  is  large 
opportunity  for  indirect  intimation,  and  direct  mimesis  by 
sound,  of  physical  accidents,  changes,  and  actions.  Man 
possesses  organs  formed  as  specifically  for  speech,  as  others 
are  for  grasping  or  locomotion,  and  there  is  no  mystery  in 
the  multiplication  and  appropriation  of  these  signs  for  the 
sake  of  convenience ;  while  analogy  and  metaphor  insensibly 
transfer  these  material  signs  to  mental  and  moral  expe- 
riences ;  thus,  in  time,  '  understanding '  is  applied  to  '  intel- 
lect' as  readily  as  to  the  leg  of  a  chair;  'sweet'  becomes  a 
common  epithet  for  a  ripe  fruit,  a  feminine  smile,  and  the 
disposition  which  inspires  the  smile.  No  doubt  dialectic 
change  is  influenced  by  special  powers  of  producing  certain 
combinations  of  sound,  but  phonetic  change  can  only  be  pro- 
perly called  corruption  or  decay  when  it  clings  to  the  posi- 
tively disagreeable,  or  destroys  expressiveness.  Even  with 
the  most  uncultured,  the  struggle  to  express  governs  the 
direction  and  degree  of  change;  and  such  forms  as  'squirrel' 
or  '  queer '  are  no  casual  results  of  mere  disintegration,  but, 
like  'thunder'  and  other  words  of  the  same  nature,  have 


GREEK  LANGUAGE  AND  CHARACTERISTICS.       7 

been  gradually  modified  and  fixed  at  last  in  virtue  of  this 
constant  aim  and  influence ;  poetry  would  have  expired 
long  ago  if  language  had  not  chiefly  grown  out  of  and 
by  mimetic  expressiveness.  The  degree  of  elegance  with 
which  this  expressiveness  is  finally  attained  is  the  measure 
of  the  natural  refinement  and  taste  of  the  people  among 
whom  it  has  grown  up.  The  same  influence  may  be  traced 
in  the  rejection  of  various  forms  for  the  sake  of  avoiding 
discords  in  combinations  of  frequent  recurrence,  or  in  coarse 
and  careless  disregard  of  them.  Extrusion  of  clumsiness, 
that  is,  the  rejection  of  unnecessary  syllables  and  cumbrous 
combinations,  is  above  all,  and  in  the  first  place,  characteristic 
of  the  Greek  language.  Beyond  this,  what  grace,  elegance, 
and  euphony  were  attained,  as  the  language  proceeded,  not 
through  corruption  and  decay,  but  through  healthy  and 
vigorous  growth,  must  be  studied  in  other  pages;  but  it 
is  important  to  bear  the  fact  in  mind  here. 

With  regard  to  the  political  condition  of  Greece  as  exhibited 
in  the  poems,  its  relations  to  grand  exterior  empires  is  much 
the  same  as  we  find  it  at  the  dawn  of  history.  It  is  in 
contact  occasionally,  and  no  more,  with  Phoenicia,  Egypt, 
and  northern  tribes ;  enough  so  to  make  the  transfer  of  arts 
and  the  course  of  mercantile  exchange  familiar  probabilities, 
but  not  to  induce  important  hostile  collisions.  Within  the 
limits  of  European  Greece,  the  divisions  of  states  are  almost 
identical  with  the  lines  of  boundaries  during  the  war  with 
Xerxes, — lines  determined  by  the  physical  character  of  the 
mountain-traversed  land,  and  further  by  the  susceptibility  of 
the  people  for  tribal  influences  and  attachment  to  distinct 
local  centres.  Still  there  is  the  same  sense  of  unity  of  race, 
and  sympathy  in  language,  customs,  maxims,  religion,  among 
these  independent  communities,  as  in  later  times ;  and  they 
are  exhibited,  also,  as  having  a  capacity  for  joint  action 
under  one  predominant  state,  just  as  when  they  adhered  to 
the  hegemony,  or  leadership  of  Sparta  or  Athens ;  and  the 


8  INTRODUCTORY. 

great  moral  of  the  whole  is,  that  if  ever  Greece  was  to  be 
ruined,  it  would  be  by  her  incapacity  to  take  to  heart  and 
profit  by  the  poet's  lesson  of  necessity  for  concord  in  con- 
federation as  a  condition  of  national  safety. 

But  there  are  two  great  differences  between  the  Greece  of 
Homer  and  that  of  the  opening  of  regular  and  authentic 
history.  The  Homeric  states  are  not  in  a  single  instance 
republican,  whatever  the  indications  of  a  vigorous  public 
opinion  which  has  to  be  managed,  cajoled,  or  even  some- 
times cowed ;  they  are  all  under  the  sway  of  kings,  and 
kings  who  claim  by  divine  right,  and  indeed,  for  the  most 
part,  by  divine  descent,  a  title  which  dates  beyond  the  memoiy 
of  man.  The  germ  of  the  later  development  is  there — espe- 
cially of  that  republican  condition  which  admitted  the  pre- 
dominant influence  of  the  Eupatrid — but  at  present  it  gives 
only  feeble  and  occasional  signs  of  vitality. 

Another  great  distinction  is  that  the  leading  tribe  which 
now  gives  general  title  to  the  nation  is  Achaian,  whereas, 
when  history  opens  in  full  light,  Achaian  has  sunk  or  receded 
into  the  title  of  a  very  secondary  district,  or  even  into  a  third 
rank  ;  the  nation  at  large  calls  itself  Hellenic,  and  its  leading- 
subdivisions,  comprising  groups  of  states  not  especially  asso- 
ciated in  Homeric  times,  are  Aeolians,  lonians,  and  Dorians. 
Dorian  Sparta  is  now  the  most  powerful,  and  asserts  some- 
what of  the  comprehensive  control  of  the  regal  Agamemnon, 
though  in  every  respect  the  most  distinct  and  abnormal  in 
habits  and  institutions,  and  in  rudest  contrast  to  the  luxu- 
rious home  of  Menelaus  and  Helen.  The  identity  of  the 
race  at  large,  however,  is  certified  not  less  by  language 
than  by  the  continuance  of  all  earlier  characteristics ;  energy 
by  land  and  sea ;  admiration  of  beauty  in  all  things,  espe- 
cially in  what  is  susceptible  of  most  beauty,  the  human 
form  and  character;  enthusiasm  for  lofty  ideals,  however 
often  unrealised  in  practice;  the  love  of  poetry,  of  art,  of 
athletic  exercises;  the  assertion  of  free  action  and  free 


CHANGE  FROM  HOMERIC  TO  HISTORIC  HELLAS.    9 

speech ;  a  sense  of  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  race,  espe- 
cially as  contrasted  with  the  enervated  or  slavish  tribes  to 
the  east  of  the  Aegean. 

The  social  contrast,  therefore,  is  as  great  as  between  the 
sculpture  of  the  gate  of  Mycenae  and  that  of  the  Aeginetan 
pediments ;  as  great,  and  as  certainly  marking  an  inter- 
mediate period  of  active  revolutions,  with  movements  and 
collisions  of  tribes  and  populations. 

And  if  such  changes  took  place  after  the  Homeric  epoch, 
surely  we  are  entitled  to  ask,  whether  the  like,  and  even  yet 
more  violent,  did  not  probably  take  place  before?  The 
poetry,  for  good  poetic  reasons,  makes  no  mention  of  any 
forcible  origin  of  the  Achaian  power  in  Southern  Greece  ;  but 
traditions,  the  more  trustworthy  because  independent  of  each 
other,  told  how  the  Achaians  had  descended  from  Thessaly 
and  original  seats  at  Phthiotis  which  continued  to  retain 
the  name  of  Achaia.  Thus  is  explained  how  it  was  that 
the  chief  hero  of  the  Achaian  epic  is  Achilles,  who  belongs 
to  these  original  seats,  and  not  the  more  powerful  Agamem- 
non of  the  later  seats,  and  who,  moreover,  was  traditionally  of 
foreign  lineage. 

Tradition,  borne  out  again  by  corroborations  which  it  is  idle 
to  extenuate,  told  further  how,  after  the  period  of  Achaian 
domination  in  Southern  Greece,  and  the  collision  with  Asia  in 
the  Troad,  a  great  movement  of  tribes  was  urged  southward 
upon  Peloponnesus,  which  displaced  or  subdued  the  former 
occupants,  and  gradually  established  the  system  of  tribal 
distribution  as  represented  in  history.  A.  significant  threat 
in  the  Iliad,  of  the  subversion  of  Mycenae,  Argos,  and  Sparta, 
has  been  fairly  held  to  intimate  that  the  poet  lived  after,  or 
during  the  course  of,  these  revolutions ;  the  conjecture  may 
be  confirmed  by  a  similar  hint  to  a  future  reign  of  de- 
scendants of  Aeneas  in  the  Troad. 

It  must  have  been  in  the  course  and  as  a  consequence 
of  these  convulsions — whose  evidence  is  absolute,  however  ob- 


10  INTRODUCTORY. 

scure  their  dates  and  details — that  the  distinction  of  Dorians 
and  lonians  took  definite  form.  Of  this  more  must  be  said 
hereafter;  at  present  we  have  to  note  that  it  constitutes 
a  main  feature  in  a  further  contrast  between  this  later 
epoch  and  the  earlier  Homeric. 

The  epos  exhibits  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  as  uncolonised 
by  Greeks,  except  for  some  occasional  connection,  as  in  Lycia; 
but  we  now  find  it  fringed  with  Greek  cities,  active,  power- 
ful, populous,  and  grouped  in  marked  agreement  with  rela- 
tionship. There  is  an  Asiatic  Aeolis,  Ionia,  and  Doris. 

The  Aeolian  cities — earliest  and  oldest — are  settled  about 
the  islands  and  districts  that  were  the  reputed  seats  of  the 
Achaian  warfare  of  Homer.  The  poetic  war  is  not  waged 
for  territory,  but  for  plunder ;  not  for  established  settlement, 
but  in  retaliation  for  something  like  piracy:  but  here  never- 
theless it  must  be  observed,  that  the  poet  seems  to  carry  back 
to  the  earlier  period  of  his  subject  the  conditions  of  his  own 
time ;  the  Achaians,  from  their  mountainous  peninsula,  are 
made  to  fight  habitually  in  chariots,  a  mode  of  warfare  only 
suitable  for  the  extensive  plains  of  Lydia  or  about  the  coast ; 
and  that  women  are  among  the  most  valued  spoil,  seems  a 
glaring  transference  from  the  later  time,  when,  according, 
to  other  notices,  the  immigrants  systematically  arrived  as 
warriors  alone,  and  trusted  to  their  arms  to  gain  the  wives 
with  whom  they  commenced  a  new  race  in  a  new  country. 

Tradition,  then,  is  borne  out  by  manifest  facts  in  establish- 
ing that  the  Achaian  domination  was  superseded  by  violent 
changes  in  the  seats  of  Greek  tribes,  due  to  the  so-called 
return  of  the  Heracleid  dynasty  to  assert  ancestral  claims  in 
Peloponnesus,  and  that  thereafter  ensued  a  long  period  of 
active  colonisation  both  east  and  west. 

Particular  chronology  here  must  always  be  disputable ;  let 
it  be  enough  to  state  a  conviction,  founded  on  the  tenacious 
adherence  of  the  Greeks  to  certain  ceremonious  forms  in 
founding  colonies  and  their  heroic  estimate  of  the  honour  of 


THE  FIRST  OLYMPIADS— CYCLIC  POETRY.       11 

leading  such  enterprises,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  set  down 
all  traditional  names,  and  even  dates,  as  '  unhistoric.'  The 
return  of  the  Heracleids  was  currently  dated  in  a  year  1066 
B.C.,  precisely  at  the  distance  anterior  to  our  epoch  that  the 
Norman  Conquest,  to  which  it  is  in  many  respects  a  parallel, 
occurred  after  it.  Three  centuries  lie  between  it  and  776  B.C., 
the  epoch  of  the  first  Olympiad,  when  Coroebus  was  a  victor; 
of  whom,  it  is  true,  we  know  nothing  else,  in  a  period  that 
is  equally  unknown.  And  yet  the  commencement  of  that 
reckoning  was  itself  an  important  historical  fact.  It  marks 
generally,  and  must  mark,  the  attachment  to  celebrations 
which  became  so  expressive  of  the  sympathetic  self-con- 
sciousness of  the  Hellenic  race.  The  Olympic  truce  was 
an  occasion  of  suspended  enmities,  of  meetings  in  joyful 
amity;  the  olive  crown,  the  coveted  prize,  was  taken  from 
the  tree  which  can  only  arrive  at  profitable  fruit-bearing 
through  years  exempt  from  devastation,  and  hence  was 
the  accepted  symbol  of  peace,  as  it  also  provided  the  oil 
that  gave  vigour  in  noble  games ;  and  all  comparisons  point 
to  this  date  as  one  from  which  the  settlement  of  Hellas 
became  recognised  as  permanent. 

In  these  intervening  centuries  lay  the  plantation  of  the 
numerous  colonies,  which  attained  to  such  prosperity,  that 
they  themselves  became  mother-cities  and  planted  .colonies 
far  and  wide  again,  at  cited  dates  posterior  to  776  B.C.,  and 
probably  in  many  instances  authentic. 

To  the  century  800-700  B.C.  is  referred,  with  every  assur- 
ance of  correctness,  the  origin  of  a  vast  mass  of  heroic  poetry, 
the  work  of  what  were  known  as  the  Cyclic  poets,  which 
was  extant  through  the  classic  ages.  It  was  in  the  style  of 
the  Homeric  epos,  and  some  long  poems  were  even  ascribed 
very  currently  to  the  same  poet.  Others  of  the  poems  were 
attached  to  names  of  other  poets;  some  were  anonymous. 
Regarded  as  a  whole,  they  gained  their  title  of  Cyclic  from 
completing,  when  taken  together,  with  more  or  less  inter- 


12  INTRODUCTORY. 

ference  of  subjects,  a  poetical  account  of  all  events  from  the 
creation,  or  even  before  it,  down  to  the  death  of  Ulysses. 
At  this  point  mythological  story  closed,  and  the  blank  that 
then  intervenes  before  a  more  simply  pragmatical  story  re- 
commences with  the  return  of  the  Heracleids,  is  strong 
evidence  of  a  new  spirit  having  supervened  on  national 
thought  at  a  period  that  followed  this  crowning  revolution. 
Mythology  does  not  take  its  subject  very  near  to  the  time  of 
the  mythologist;  History  is  shy  of  an  immediate  attachment 
to  a  series  of  events  with  which  its  own  are  incongruous,  and 
a  break  is  inevitable. 

Dionysius  of  l  Halicarnassus  fixes  the  date  of  Arctinus,  the 
author  of  the  Aethiopis,  one  of  these  poems,  and  the  most 
ancient  poet,  as  he  believed,  of  whose  historical  existence  dis- 
tinct trace  could  be  recognised,  as  775  B.C.  But  the  general 
period  alone  is  of  consequence,  and  it  is  limited  and  certi- 
fied by  the  unquestionable  fact  that  this  poetry  was  the  pro- 
duction of  a  period  anterior  to  that  of  the  Iambic  poets,  who 
can  be  far  more  accurately  dated. 

Distinct  authentic  history,  we  have  said,  only  begins  two 
centuries  after  the  assigned  date  of  Arctinus,  with  the  usurpa- 
tion of  Peisistratus,  or  at  most  the  legislation  of  Solon,  594  B.CX; 
but  the  preceding  century,  which  followed  the  age  of  the 
Cyclic  poetry,  was  most  brilliant  and  fertile  of  Greek  genius, 
and  bequeathed  productions  that  were  the  admiration  and 
delight  of  the  best  ages  of  antiquity,  and  down  to  the  very 
establishment  of  Christianity. 

The  poems  of  this  period,  lyric,  iambic,  elegiac,  melic, 
were  full  of  personal  and  passionate  allusions,  and  re- 
sponsive hints,  that  would  certify  at  least  their  order  of 
succession.  Archilochus  of  Paros  dates  as  early  as  708  B.C. 
The  consent  of  antiquity  adjudged  him  a  fame  only  second  to 
that  of  Homer ;  the  earliest  of  the  lyric  poets,  he  is  credited 
with  exhaustless  fertility  in  invention  of  new  metrical  com- 

1  i.  68. 


THE  CENTURY  OF  LOST  LYRIC  POETRY.         13 

binations :  this  style  of  poetry,  imbued  with  the  passions  of 
the  moment,  so  different  from  the  genius  of  epic  poetry, 
had  thus  a  definite  historic  as  well  as  poetic  value ;  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  personality  of  Archilochus 
was  as  salient  in  his  works  as  that  of  Horace  or  Ben 
Jonson ;  and  in  various  degrees  the  case  was  the  same  with 
all  his  successors — with  Simonides  of  Amorgos,  Tyrtaeus 
especially,  Anacreon,  Alcman,  Arion,  Alcaeus  and  Sappho, 
Erinna  and  Stesichorus,  until  Mimnermus,  lastly,  conies 
into  direct  relation  with  Solon. 

The  cultivation  of  music  was  pursued  not  less  enthusiasti- 
cally during  this  age,  but  here  we  are  of  necessity  at  greater 
disadvantage  in  forming  a  judgment,  though  we  cannot 
hesitate  to  accept  the  ancient  renown  as  well  deserved, 
and  do  homage  to  the  antecedents  of  the  odes  of  Pindar 
and  the  choruses  of  the  dramatic  poets,  both  comic  and 
tragic. 

Thus  it  is  that  beyond  the  limits  of  the  broad  light  of 
Herodotus  a  sort  of  historical  twilight  extends,  and  even 
as  it  settles  into  darkness  we  see  reflected  in  the  sky  the 
splendours  of  works  that  unhappily  have  all  but  perished  ; 
we  gather  faint  echoes  of  music  and  song  from  a  succession 
of  singers  as  gifted  as  those  who  made  the  glory  of  the 
age  of  Pericles,  and  still  more  numerous  in  their  succes- 
sion. Pushed  back  certainly  by  this  unbroken  series  to  the 
very  commencement  of  the  Olympiads,  was  the  age  which 
had  transmitted  the  vast  mass  of  Cyclic  poetry,  afterwards 
to  be  subjected  to  the  criticism  of  Aristotle,  but  only  to  be 
found  wanting  as  compared  with  the  unequalled  art  of  the 
Homeric  epos,  descending  from  a  still  more  remote  and 
obscurer  Beyond.  Even  in  a  summary  so  largely  compre- 
hensive we  omit  the  important  class  of  hymns  both  poetic 
and  properly  sacred,  and  the  peculiar  compositions  of"  the 
Hesiodic  cycle. 

Such  was  the  wealthy  heritage  of  literary  art  and  beauty 


14  INTRODUCTORY. 

which  Hellas  had  long  enjoyed  before  the  age  of  Peisistratus, 
barely  a  century  before  the  birth  of  Herodotus,  when  at 
last  the  obscurity  clears  away  from  the  historic  field,  and 
we  can  follow  with  confidence  a  series  of  connected  events  and 
the  actions  of  identifiable  characters.  It  is  certain  that  the 
plastic  arts  and  architecture  had  already  made  advances  scarcely 
less  important;  technical  processes  had  been  mastered,  the 
principle  of  constant  and  ever-renewed  reference  to  nature 
had  been  combined  with  the  aspiration  to  correct  the  indi- 
vidual model  by  'an  idea  within  the  mind,'  by  study  per- 
severing and  yet  so  sensitive  that  it  caught  exactly  the 
moment  to  resign  itself  to  the  free  guidance  of  imagination. 
It  must  remain  doubtful  whether  any  of  the  statuary  of 
this  period  could  hold  its  ground  in  comparison  with  the 
Pheidian  period  in  the  same  sense  in  which  works  of  Archi- 
lochtis  or  Sappho  took  equal  rank  with  Sophocles,  but  at 
least  the  preliminary  conditions  of  the  later  development  were 
mastered.  The  case  was  certainly  the  same  in  architecture ; 
the  vast  temple  of  Samos,  and  the  earlier  Parthenon,  had 
already  decided  all  the  leading  members  of  the  style,  and  the 
remains,  archaic  as  they  are,  of  the  temple  at  Corinth,  evince 
that  the  application  of  proportion  to  building,  the  counter- 
point of  architecture,  had  already  become  matter  of  theoretic 
study,  of  which  the  marvellous  results  were  to  be  fully 
manifest  later  on. 

Government  also,  in  its  best  sense,  as  the  systematic 
conciliation  of  Force  and  Order  with  individual  freedom, 
had  made  corresponding  advances,  when  all  the  accumulated 
preparations  for  human  culture  were  threatened  by  Asiatic 
despotism.  The  age  of  divinely-descended  and  authorised 
kings  had  been  succeeded,  after  years  of  compromise  or 
convulsion,  by  constitutional  order,  oligarchical  doubtless  in 
most  cases,  but  still  tempered,  destined  to  yield  in  its  turn, 
however,  to  an  age  of  Tyrants;  but  with  the  fall  of  the 
sons  of  Peisistratus  at  Athens  the  last  traces  of  this  latter 


SUCCESSION  OF  MONARCHY— TYRANNY.         15 

period  also  had  passed  away.  The  vigorous  constitution 
of  Sparta  had  retained  the  form  of  royalty  with  much 
outward  ceremony,  but  under  severe  control ;  and  the 
dominant  oligarchs  had  taken  care  to  secure  the  power 
of  their  fellows  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Hellas,  by  suppressing  all  the  tyrannies  one  after  l an- 
other. The  last  of  their  achievements  in  this  way  was  the 
expulsion  from  Athens  of  the  son  of  Peisistratus,  who  took 
refuge  in  Persia,  and  there  exerted  himself,  only  too 
effectually,  to  bring  the  scourge  of  Oriental  invasion  upon 
his  native  land.  Tyranny  at  Athens,  however,  was  only 
superseded  by  another  force  scarcely  less  repugnant  to 
Sparta.  The  spirit  of  democracy,  native  here,  was  inimical 
alike  to  oligarch  and  to  tyrant ;  and  with  hands  free, 
and  aided  by  a  remarkable  manifestation  of  individual 
genius,  it  made  the  next  great  chapter  of  Hellenic  story — 
a  conflict  of  democracy  with  Oriental  despotism  in  the 
first  place,  but  with  Hellenic,  and  especially  Spartan, 
oligarchy  immediately  and  constantly  thereafter. 

The  same  date  marks  the  power  of  Peisistratus  at  Athens 
and  the  accession  of  the  Median  Cyrus ;  and  the  extraordinary 
development  of  Persian  power  absorbed,  in  its  movement 
westward,  the  recently  consolidated  Lydian  kingdom, — 
together  with  all  the  Hellenic  cities  on  the  sea-board,  which 
after  centuries  of  independence  had  only  just  succumbed 
to  Lydia  when  they  were  transferred  to  a  still  more  powerful 
master, — and  under  his  son  Cambyses  subjugated  the  pri- 
maeval civilisation  of  Egypt.  The  growth  of  this  great 
power  proceeded  even  still  more  formidably  when  it  was 
wielded  by  the  organising  energy  of  Darius  Hystaspes, 
about  thirty  years  after  the  conquest  of  Lydia.  Darius  in 
person  led  armies  into  Europe  as  far  as  the  Danube,  his 
lieutenants  Mardonius  and  Megabazus  secured  permanent 
hold  on  many  parts  of  Macedonia  and  Thrace,  and  an 
1  Herod,  v.  92. 


- 

16  INTRODUCTORY. 

attempt  was  made  (501  B.C.)  as  far  to  the  west,  and  as 
near  to  Athens  and  Sparta,  as  the  island  of  Naxos. 

The  time  was  now  at  last  once  more  at  hand  when  the 
comparative  mettle  of  Greek  and  Oriental,  Western  and 
Eastern  tribes,  which  had  met  in  such  unequal  conflict  in  the 
Homeric  epos,  was  to  be  tried  in  mortal  combat  for  life  or 
death  to  liberty,  and  to  civilised  and  progressive  culture. 

Ionia  rose  in  revolt  against  the  Persian,  Sparta  withheld 
the  solicited  aid,  but  Athens  was  roused  by  the  peril  of 
cities  which  owned  her  as  their  metropolis ;  even  her  effort, 
however,  was  but  single  and  spasmodic,  and  she  withdrew 
entirely,  after  giving  mortal  affront  by  assisting  the  in- 
surgents in  the  burning  of  Sardis. 

Within  ten  years  she  found  herself  exposed  to  a  retaliatory 
attack  upon  her  own  ground.  The  valour  of  the  unassisted 
Athenians,  and  the  conduct  of  their  general  Miltiades,  inflicted 
on  the  host  of  Datis  and  Artaphernes  on  the  field  of  Mara- 
thon a  defeat  which  brought  that  expedition  to  a  disgraceful 
end.  The  Spartans  arrived  too  late  for  the  battle,  and 
afterwards,  with  characteristic  sluggishness,  left  the  more 
acute  and  alert  Athenians  to  anticipate  and  prepare  for  a 
renewal  of  the  conflict.  For  three  years  Asia  was  stirred 
from  end  to  end  by  a  single  resistless  mandate  to  prepare 
for  the  subjugation  of  this  little  group  of  independent 
communities,  while  Xerxes,  in  the  pride  of  youthful  sway, 
and  heir  to  his  father's  animosity,  prepared  to  make  the 
progress  of  triumph  and  revenge  in  person. 

At  Athens  at  least  the  impending  danger  was  not  un- 
prepared for ;  though  that  it  was  not  so  even  here  was  due 
chiefly  to  the  foresight  and  energetic  genius  of  one  man — 
Themistocles.  He  read  the  lesson  of  the  past,  that  the 
salvation  of  the  Athenians,  if  not  of  Athens,  must,  under  a 
renewed  attack,  depend  on  their  possession  of  ships,  and  that 
the  severest  stroke  which  could  be  dealt  against  an  invader, 
however  he  arrived,  would  be  the  annihilation  of  his  fleet. 


DESPOTIC  PERSIA  AND  DEMOCRA  TIC  A  THENS.   1 7 

On  this  occasion  at  least  the  Spartans  set  one  grand 
example,  which  was  probably  due  to  the  personal  spirit 
of  their  king  Leonidas.  The  embattled  nations  of  the 
Persians  crossed  the  Hellespont  and  wound  round  through 
Thessaly,  embarrassed  only  by  their  own  encumbering 
numbers,  to  encounter  opposition  at  the  first  spot  under 
the  circumstances  even  moderately  defensible,  the  pass  of 
Thermopylae.  There  is  no  need  to  recount  the  circum- 
stances of  the  conflict  ;  but  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  the  strategic  insight  of  the  Spartan,  there  is  no  reason 
to  condemn  the  exploit  as  heroism  thrown  away ;  from 
the  result  of  it  Sparta  may  have  learnt  to  be  cautious  in 
committing  her  fortunes  to  entire  sacrifice  on  a  point 
of  honour ;  but  the  approval  at  home  of  the  steadfastness 
of  the  three  hundred,  the  proof  they  gave  before  they 
were  destroyed  of  the  efficiency  of  Hellenic  against  Persian 
arms,  and  the  moral  impression  created  upon  the  Persians 
themselves,  were  not  without  most  important  influence 
upon  the  later  conflicts. 

In  the  meantime  Themistocles  was  labouring  to  keep  the 
ships  of  the  various  Greek  states  together,  and  to  unite 
them  in  well-concerted  action,  by  persuasion,  self-control, 
and  bribery.  He  inflicted  severe  losses  on  the  hostile  navy 
as  they  advanced  towards  the  shores  of  Attica,  and  was 
happily  seconded  by  the  elements.  He  then  carried  the 
resolution  for  the  general  evacuation,  not  only  of  Attica, 
but  of  Athens  itself,  transported  the  entire  population  to 
the  islands  and  opposite  peninsulas,  and  watched  with 
vig-ilant  anxiety  for  the  opportunity  to  strike  his  long- 
expected  blow. 

The  confederate  fleet  was  mustered  in  the  Saronic  Gulf 
about  the  island  of  Salamis,  as  the  Persians  rendezvoused  in 
the  roadstead  of  Phaleron  ;  while  Xerxes  had  already  occupied 
Athens  and  Attica,  and  might  at  any  time  move  forward 
upon  the  Peloponnesus.  In  such  a  confined  position  the 

c 


18  INTRODUCTORY. 

smaller  fleet  had  everything  to  hope  from  an  engagement, 
but  the  Greek  commanders  of  the  Peloponnesian  states  had 
neither  the  confidence  of  Themistocles,  nor — trusting  in  the 
blockade  of  the  Isthmus — did  they  conceive  that  their  stake 
was  equally  emperilled. 

The  rest  is,  for  our  present  purpose,  soon  and  briefly  told. 
Themistocles  sent  a  private  message  to  the  Persian  king, 
which  was  too  like  many  another  communication  from 
Greek  traitors  to  be  suspected,  and  which  determined  him  to 
commence  the  attack  at  once.  While  the  allied  commanders 
were  still  proposing  immediate  departure  and  separation, 
they  found  that  retreat  was  already  cut  off,  that  the  enemy 
were  advancing,  and  that  the  only  alternative — accepted  then 
for  the  most  part  with  unhesitating  courage — was  to  fight  at 
once. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  that  brought  on  the  battle", 
and,  with  the  battle,  the  victory,  of  Salamis. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

THE  RESULTS  OF  SALAMIS. THE  STRATAGEM  OF  THEMISTOCLES. 

480  B.C.  ;  Olym.  75.  i. 

WHEN  night  closed  upon  the  scene  of  the  battle  of 
Salamis,  the  victorious  Greeks  were  unaware  of  the  full 
extent  and  value  of  their  success  ;  the  enormous  land  army 
of  Xerxes  was,  they  knew,  entirely  uninjured,  except  by  the 
loss  of  a  trifling  detachment  cut  off  by  Aristides  on  the  islet 
Psyttaleia,  and  of  some  leading  officers  who  had  taken  part 
in  the  sea-fight ;  and  even  at  sea  the  ships  that  had  never 
been  engaged  at  all,  or  had  escaped  with  little  damage 
to  the  station  at  Phalerum,  were  so  numerous  that  the 
allied  commanders  fully  anticipated  a  renewed  attack.  The 
moral  victory,  however,  proved  to  have  been  more  decisive 
than  the  material — itself  not  unimportant.  It  was  not 
so  much  that  the  troops  and  mariners  of  the  invader 
were  seriously  demoralised,  as  that  Xerxes  himself  had 
looked  on  in  surprise  and  agitation  at  all  the  incidents 
of  the  conflict.  Even  if  the  loss  of  his  brother  and  the 
slaughter  of  his  personal  friends  before  his  eyes  might  not 
have  affected  the  nerves  of  the  Great  King  to  the  degree 
described  by  Aeschylus  (Pers.  4/4),  he  could  not  but  ob- 
serve at  what  disadvantage  his  forces,  for  all  their  superior 
numbers, — fighting  bravely  as  they  might  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  immediate  presence, — had  contended  with 
the  patriotic  enthusiasm,  the  order  and  skill  of  their  op- 
ponents. It  might  indeed  seem  that  with  power  at  his 

c  2 


20  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

command  which  was  still  so  preponderant,  he  could  well 
afford  to  strike  another  blow  even  at  equal  cost,  a  blow 
which  must  have  fallen  with  decisive  disastrousness  on  the 
smaller  force  of  the  Greeks.  But  the  stanchness  of  his 
Phoenician  and  Cilician  forces  was  thoroughly  discredited 
by  their  behaviour  in  the  battle ;  the  lonians  could  not 
be  trusted  at  a  turn  of  fortune,  and  the  better  troops 
whom  he  had  embarked,  having  no  opportunity  for  their 
valour  in  a  form  of  contest  unknown  to  them,  were 
simply  thrown  away.  The  superiority  of  the  Greeks  on 
their  own  element  was  too  manifest  and  too  serious  for 
the  repetition  of  a  venture  that  might  jeopardize  his  own 
personal  safety;  by  one  more  such  battle  his.  fleet  might 
be  utterly  disorganised  and  dispersed,  and  then  the  enemy, 
established  in  full  command  of  the  sea  and  the  straits, 
could  cut  off  his  retreat  from  Europe,  and  even  interpose 
an  obstacle  to  his  return  beyond,  by  inciting  a  general 
Ionian  insurrection.  It  was  not  because  his  private  resolve 
was  not  fixed  at  once,  that  his  immediate  commands  implied 
a  purpose  to  remain  and  prosecute  the  enterprise  without 
intermission;  preparation  was  to  be  made  for  another  sea- 
fight,  and  a  project  that  had  been  mooted  and  perhaps 
commenced  before  the  battle,  a  familiar  and  favourite 
Oriental  expedient,  was  again  spoken  of;  Phoenician  trans- 
port vessels  were  to  be  fastened  together  to  form  a  bulwark 
and  floating  pier,  and  a  causeway  was  to  be  completed  from 
the  mainland  to  the  island  of  Salamis,  the  refuge  of  the 
Athenian  families  and  the  storeplace  of  their  property. 

A  show  of  consultation  was  then  made  with  Mardonius, 
son  of  Gobryas,  the  most  eager  instigator  of  the  expedition, 
and  separately  with  the  Carian  Queen  Artemisia,  who  had 
already  commanded  the  confidence  of  the  King  by  the  frank 
independence  of  her  counsel  no  less  than  by  its  wisdom. 

1  Ctesios;  and  Strabo,  ix.  573. 


i.]  THE  RESULTS  OF  SAL  A  MIS.  21 

Both  were  forward  to  minister  the  desired  advice.  Mar- 
donius  especially  had  motives  of  his  own  for  pressing 
what  he  might  easily  divine  was  the  only  recommendation 
that  would  be  listened  to;  he  had  little  inclination  to  be 
responsible  at  home  for  the  entire  and  disastrous  failure  of 
his  policy — a  failure  which  in  truth  it  was  as  yet  premature 
to  admit.  The  prospect  of  being  left  with  a  brilliant  in- 
dependent command,  in  the  conduct  of  which  he  was  not 
unnaturally  or  unfairly  still  sanguine  of  success,  was  tempt- 
ing; the  more  speedy  and  alarmed  the  flight  of  Xerxes  the 
larger  the  proportion  of  the  army  that  he  would  be  both 
disposed  and  obliged  to  leave  behind  as  an  obstacle  between 
himself  and  the  possible  pursuit  of  the  Greeks.  As  for  Ar- 
temisia, she  had  distinguished  herself  by  remarkable  bravery 
in  the  battle;  and  even  without  insisting  on  the  feminine 
liability  to  excessive  reaction  after  displays  of  unfeminine 
vigour,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  infer  that  she  was  well 
content  to  be  now  dismissed  in  honour.  The  Great  King 
consigned  to  her  charge  some  of  his  illegitimate  offspring, 
and  she  loosed  at  once  for  Ephesus,  where  it  was  said 
that  primaeval  Amazons  had  founded  the  great  temple  for 
the  goddess  from  whom  this  modern  Amazon  derived  her 
name. 

The  speeches  which  Herodotus  assigns  to  the  two  coun- 
sellors are  excellent  examples  of  his  apt  dramatic  invention, 
and  curiously  display  how  thoroughly  a  republican  Greek  of 
his  time  could  enter  into  the  spirit  of  an  absolute  monarchy. 
Xerxes  is  flattered  and  capable  of  being  flattered  by  the  sug- 
gestion of  an  option,  although  the  necessity  for  his  flight 
is  a  foregone  conclusion,  since  both  to  his  own  conviction, 
and  to  that  of  his  advisers,  an  alternative  of  any  kind  is 
out  of  the  question.  To  soothe  or  seem  to  soothe  his  pride, 
the  losses  that  have  been  incurred  are  made  light  of  when 
set  against  the  glorious  and  literal  fulfilment  of  the  purpose 
of  the  expedition ;  Athenian  insolence  and  sacrilege  at  Sardis 


22  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

had  found  its  threatened  retribution  in  the  capture  of 
Athens  and  the  smoking  ruins  of  its  most  sacred  temples ; 
losses,  of  whatever  magnitude,  that  might  ensue  to  the 
avenging  army,  are  treated  as  of  little  consequence  in  com- 
parison with  the  all-important  safety  of  the  King ;  Arte- 
misia, with  something  different  from  the  abasement  of 
sycophancy,  in  all  the  sympathetic  candour  of  royalty  in 
secluded  conference  with  royalty,  adverts  to  the  possible 
destruction  of  Mardonius  and  his  host  as  comparatively 
of  little  consequence. 

Among  the  ostensible  reasons  for  the  departure  of  the 
King  were  some  which  told  with  equal  cogency  against  the 
further  prosecution  of  the  war;  and  these  were  made  the 
most  of,  especially  by  Artabazus  son  of  Pharnaces,  who  had 
opposed  it  from  the  very  beginning.  Mardonius  however 
carried  his  purpose  by  skilfully  connecting  it  with  conditions 
of  self-complacent  comfort  for  the  disheartened  Xerxes,  and 
with  the  propriety  and  security  of  his  speedy  return. 

Accordingly,  at  daybreak  of  apparently  the  day  but  one 
after  the  l  battle,  the  Persian  army  indeed  was  still  seen 
across  the  gulf  in  its  place  on  land,  but  the  Greeks  discovered 
that  the  hostile  fleet  had  vanished  from  the  harbour  and 
roadstead  of  Phalerum.  Its  destination  and  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  move  were  at  once  divined.  It  had  in  fact 
started  during  the  night,  and  though  dispersed  for  a  time 
off  Cape  Zoster,  where  jutting  rocks — so  it  was  afterwards 
believed — were  mistaken  in  the  darkness  for  Greek  ships, 
had  reassembled  and  was  already  in  full  course  northwards 
to  secure  the  Hellespont.  The  Greek  fleet  put  off  in  pursuit 
with  the  utmost  alacrity,  and  proceeded  as  far  as  the  island 
of  Andros,  where  the  sea-line  was  open  northwards,  but  as 
the  chase  was  still  not  in  sight,  the  commanders  paused  to 
consider  their  further  movements. 

1  Herod,  viii.  107. 


i.]  THE  RESULTS  OF  SALAMIS.  23 

The  Athenian  crews  in  all  the  elation  of  success  were 
exasperated  at  the  escape,  and  eager  to  go  on,  even  against 
the  opinion  of  the  allies,  and  even  by  themselves.  Themis- 
tocles  was  not  likely  to  be  less  confident,  or  less  eager 
to  make  the  most  of  the  superiority  of  the  fleet  which  he 
had  himself  created ;  and,  as  something  more  than  their 
mouthpiece,  he  was  urgent  in  the  same  direction.  He 
pressed  with  all  his  influence  for  continuing  the  pursuit  of 
the  fugitive  navy,  the  annihilation  of  which  was  certainly 
important,  and  in  its  present  state  of  dispersion  and  demo- 
ralisation presumably  easy;  and  he  held  out  the  prospect  of 
intercepting  the  retreat  of  Xerxes  and  the  land  army  by 
breaking  the  much-talked-of  bridge  across  the  Hellespont, 
and  so  remaining  in  command  of  the  channel.  The  appa- 
rently more  astute  policy  of  declining  to  offer  an  impediment 
to  the  flight  of  a  formidable  enemy  is  assigned  to  the  Spartan 
Eurybiades,  though  Plutarch,  writing  with  Herodotus  before 
him,  prefers  some  other  authority  in  ascribing  it  to  Aristides. 
To  a  Spartan  at  that  time  the  mere  remoteness  of  such  an 
expedition,  and  that  by  sea,  would  in  itself  be  a  sufficient 
objection,  even  though  not  reinforced  by  the  national  maxim 
which  discouraged  prolonged  pursuit  after  a  victory,  or  by 
more  refined  considerations.  The  majority  of  the  allies  fell 
in  easily  with  the  resolution  to  give  no  hindrance  to  the 
evacuation  of  Europe  by  an  army  which,  as  they  prematurely 
flattered  themselves,  was  as  ready  to  retire  as  the  fleet  had 
been,  but  which,  if  obliged  to  remain,  must  be  driven,  by  the 
necessity  of  obtaining  subsistence,  to  perilous  activity,  and 
had  still  sufficient  force  in  reserve  to  overawe  or  subdue  all 
the  cities  and  tribes  of  Hellas  one  after  another.  '  With  the 
command  of  the  sea  lost,  retire  he  must,  and  it  were  best 
to  allow  him  to  do  so  now,  and  continue  the  contest  after- 
wards on  his  ground  instead  of  on  our  own.  Plausible 
as  the  project  of  crushing  Asia  in  Europe  might  sound, 
the  King  at  the  head  of  such  an  army  would,  if  driven 


24  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

to  extremity,  rouse  himself,  and  would  not  be  content  a 
second  time  merely  to  look  on,  sitting  in  state  under  a  gold 
umbrella.' 

Themistocles,  constrained  if  not  convinced,  gave  an  ex- 
ample of  loyal  deference  to  the  alliance  by  bringing  over 
his  reluctant  countrymen.  He  quoted  to  them  the  proverbial 
danger  of  provoking  desperate  men,  hinted  that  as  the  dis- 
aster of  Xerxes  was  a  manifestation  of  the  angry  grudge 
of  the  gods  at  his  impious  over-confidence,  so  it  would  be 
well  for  the  Athenians — and  he  touched  here  one  of  the  most 
sensitive  of  their  superstitions — to  avoid  giving  like  perilous 
and  presumptuous  affront  by  assuming  to  be  invincible ;  it 
was  also  urgent  to  attend  to  families,  houses  were  to  be 
rebuilt  and  resettled,  the  harvest  of  next  year  at  least  to 
be  secured — the  present  being  lost — by  getting  seed  into 
the  ground,  and  after  all  spring  would  come  round,  and  then 
would  be  the  time  to  deal  with  the  Hellespont  and  Ionia. 

But  in  fact  the  retreat  of  the  Persian  army  was  not  yet 
declared ;  and  it  was  not  certain  that  Attica  might  not  con- 
tinue to  be  occupied  as  a  base  of  further  operations.  It  was 
not  many  days  however  after  the  battle  of  Salamis  before 
this  immediate  apprehension  found  relief ;  the  confined  and 
closed-in  Attica  was  not  a  district  for  such  a  host  to  remain 
in  now  that  failure  of  supplies  and  support  by  sea  had  put 
further  advance  out  of  the  question  ;  and  its  departure  by 
the  same  route  that  it  came,  in  the  direction  of  '  Boeotia, 
revived  in  the  Greeks  the  illusive  hope  of  speedy  and  finnl 
deliverance. 

Xerxes  himself,  had  he  even  been  inclined  to  linger, 
might  have  been  hastened  away  by  a  secret  message  that 
reached  him  from  the  Athenian  commander.  Themistocles, 
overruled  in  his  plan  to  cut  off  the  retreat,  fell  back  on  the 
next  best  policy  to  hasten  it.  With  some  reliance  it  would 
seem  on  the  simplicity  of  tho  barbarian,  he  sent  to  him  again 

1  Herod,  viii.  1 13. 


i.]  TEE  STRATAGEM  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  25 

the  same  Sicinnus  who  had  before  carried  the  treacherous 
warning-  that  precipitated  a  naval  engagement  just  in  time 
for  the  salvation  of  the  Greeks.  The  instrument  was  no  doubt 
well  chosen,  as  his  dexterous  service  was  richly  rewarded 
afterwards,  when  Themistocles  made  the  former  pedagogue 
of  his  children  a  well-endowed  citizen  of  the  resettled  and 
repeopled  Thespiae.  The  liberation  moreover  at  the  same 
time  of  a  captured  royal  eunuch,  Arnaces,  was  a  personal 
favour  to  the  King,  and  supplied  an  independent  witness 
of  the  sincerity  of  the  message  and  the  reality  of  the  peril 
with  which  he  had  doubtless  been  sedulously  impressed. 
A  boat's  crew  of  faithful  adherents,  who  might  be  fully 
relied  on  to  keep  the  secret  of  the  mission,  even  under 
torture,  conveyed  the  agent  to  the  shore  of  Attica.  The 
communication  which  he  bore  was  to  the  effect  that  The- 
mistocles, the  Athenian  commander,  out  of  desire  to  be 
serviceable  to  the  King,  had  succeeded  in  restraining  the 
Greeks  from  their  eagerness  to  pursue  his  fleet  and  cut  the 
bridge  of  the  Hellespont,  and  that  he  could  now  draw  off  in 
perfect  security.  We  may  assume  that  this  tranquillizing 
assurance  was  qualified  by  some  intimation  of  the  precarious 
nature  of  the  restraint  which  Themistocles  could  exercise, 
and  would  thus  be  calculated  rather  to  enhance  the  appre- 
hension of  the  King.  The  Persian  was  only  too  well  accus- 
tomed to  receive  very  valuable  aid  from  Greek  treachery,  but 
had  not  learnt  to  suspect  still  further  treachery  beneath. 

So  far  therefore,  Athenians  and  allies,  Spartans  and  Per- 
sians, believed  alike  that  they  had  reason  to  applaud  The- 
mistocles, who,  himself  a  serviceable  friend,  had  too  lively 
a  sense  of  the  advantages  which  he  and  his  country  might 
derive  from  enthusiastic  and  powerful  friends,  to  neglect 
to  provide  them  beforehand,  or  to  use  or  abuse  them  pre- 
maturely. That  he  may  have  designed  to  confirm  the  previous 
confidence  of  the  Great  King  in  his  sympathy,  for  future  as 
well  as  present  use.  as  it  did  indeed  afterwards  stand  him 


26  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

in  good  stead,  is  probable  enough;  but  his  caution  in  ren- 
dering his  country  this  service  only  implies  that  he  knew 
how  his  countrymen,  if  it  came  to  their  knowledge,  might 
misunderstand  or  misrepresent  it;  that  the  establishment 
of  a  personal  claim  was  his  sole  or  his  main  object,  it  were 
absurd  to  suppose. 

In  a  cruise  with  his  victorious  fleet  among  the  islands, 
Themistocles  now  commenced  a  system  of  requisitions,  in- 
dependent, not  merely,  of  the  participation,  but  even  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  commanders  of  the  allies,  and,  as  Herodo- 
tus implies,  very  considerably  also  for  his  private  advantage. 
No  time  was  lost  therefore  in  giving  notice  of  the  lofty 
pretensions  of  maritime  Athens ;  his  demands  were  made 
in  the  name  of  Athens,  and  Athens  alone ;  and  whether 
simply  on  the  ground  of  fitting  contribution  to  the  common 
cause,  or  as  penalty  for  aid  rendered  to  the  Mede  by  the  cities 
or  by  individual  citizens,  and  for  the  delivery  at  his  summons, 
by  almost  all,  of  earth  and  water,  as  tokens  of  submission — 
those  demands  were  backed  by  threats  which  his  Authority 
and  the  force  at  his  command  made  in  most  cases  imme- 
diately effectual.  The  Andrians  were  curtly  informed  by  his 
messenger,  that  the  Athenians  had  with  them  two  potent" 
divinities,  Persuasion  and  Compulsion,  and  that  on  the  terms 
of  one  or  the  other  they  must  needs  pay.  The  Andrians, 
however,  felt  themselves  secure  enough  within  their  walls 
to  retort  that  these  goddesses,  serviceable  as  they  were, 
would  avail  nothing  against  a  pair  not  less  unserviceable, 
Poverty  and  Inability — impersonations  already  coupled  in 
the  poetry  of  Alcaeus  as  1  sisters — and  that  pay  they  would 
not.  The  island  was  beset  by  the  fleet,  and  the  demon- 
stration at  least  brought  in  considerable  sums  from  other 
quarters,  from  Pares  and  Euboea  certainly,  and,  as  He- 
rodotus believed,  from  elsewhere.  The  Parians  thus  bought 
themselves  off,  but  the  Carystians  of  Euboea  were  less 

'  aeuc,  xcvii.  17  ;  Bergk,  90. 


i.]  THE  STRATAGEM  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  27 

fortunate,  and,  by  what  ^disarrangement  does  not  appear, 
incurred  devastation  of  their  territory  all  the  same,  when 
the  fleet,  relinquishing  the  attempt  against  Andros,  was  on 
its  return  to  Salamis. 

It  is  perfectly  consistent  with  what  is  known  of  The- 
mistocles  that  his  own  fortune  was  increased  by  the  proceeds 
of  these  exactions ;  it  would  be  less  than  justice  to  assume 
that  no  larger  share  of  the  benefit  accrued  to  the  service 
of  the  state,  of  which  the  necessities  consequent  on  cost  of 
war,  on  devastation  and  expatriation,  must  have  been  most 
urgent.  It  was  quite  in  his  way,  as  he  had  shown  before 
the  battle  of  1Artemisium,  to  take  bribes  with  the  left  hand 
for  patriotic  services  with  the  right. 

Re-assembled  at  Salamis,  the  first  care  of  the  Greeks  was 
to  select  three  of  the  captured  Phoenician  vessels  for  dedica- 
tion to  the  gods,  to  whom  by  vicinity  or  special  appeal  their 
victory  was  peculiarly  ascribed.  One  was  dedicated  at  the 
Isthmus, — presumably  to  Poseidon, — and  was  seen  there  by 
Herodotus  ;  another  to  Athene,  on  the  promontory  of  Sunium ; 
and  a  third  to  Ajax, — but  this  not  at  Aegina,  whence  the 
Aeacid  had  been  summoned  to  aid, — but  at  Salamis,  closer 
to  the  scene  of  victory,  and  the  town  from  which  the  hero 
had  led  twelve  ships  against  Troy,  and  there  '  stationed  them,' 
according  to  the  line  suspected  of  being  interpolated  for 
a  political  intent,  'alongside  the  Athenians.' 

The  divine  share  of  the  spoil  was  then  distributed ;  from 
the  prime  of  it  the  Greeks  dedicated  at  Delphi  a  statue  of 
2  Apollo,  twelve  cubits  high,  holding  the  prow  of  a  ship. 
It  stands,  says  Herodotus,  with  a  particularity  that  marks 
the  already  crowded  state  of  the  precinct,  near  the  golden 
Alexander  of  Macedon.  This  Delphic  statue  was  probably 
of  bronze,  like  the  Zeus  at  Olympia,  which  Pausanias  men- 
tions in  the  same  passage  as  another  dedication — of  which  we 
shall  hear  more — from  the  Medica. 

1  Herod,  viii.  4.  2  Pausan.  x.  14.  3. 


28  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

The  silver-footed  throne  from  which  Xerxes  had  watched 
the  battle  on  the  height  above  the  shore  was  catalogued 
among  the  treasures  of  the  Athenian  acropolis  under  Pericles, 
but  probably  was  spoil  of  a  later  conflict. 

Meanwhile,  whatever  sanguine  hopes  might  have  been 
formed  that  the  retirement  of  the  invadeis  implied  their  final 
departure,  were  speedily  undeceived,  and  the  news  of  the  halt 
of  the  main  body  was  promptly  followed  by  that  of  renewed 
preparations  to  complete  the  subjugation  of  the  Greeks. 

There  is  no  appearance  that  the  Persian  hold  even  on 
Boeotia  was  relaxed,  and  a  pause  which  was  made  by  the  King 
in  Thessaly,  and  his  departure  northwards  shortly  afterwards 
with  a  strong  escort,  would  not  be  known  much  sooner  than 
the  sure  signs  that  the  principal  danger  was  still  impending 
over  Hellas,  '  like  the  stone  of  2  Tantalus.' 

It  was  during  this  halt,  if  we  are  to  believe  Herodotus,  as 
I  doubt  not  that  we  may,  that  an  application  was  made  to 
Xerxes  which,  strange  as  it  sounds  to  modern  ears,  would  not 
have  been  recorded  had  it  seemed  so  extravagant  to  a  Greek 
of  the  time ;  and  that  is  not  more  strange  than  many  of  the 
old  world  notions  that  are  perfectly  authenticated  as  then  still 
lingering,  especially  at  Sparta.  A  herald  of  the  Spartans 
presented  himself  at  Larissa,  and  formally  demanded  of  the 
Great  King  satisfaction  for  the  slaughter  of  their  King 
Leonidas,  '  slain  by  Medes  while  defending  Hellas.'  Xerxes 
not  unnaturally  laughed,  and  at  first  made  no  reply ;  then 
presently,  pointing  to  Mardonius,  who  was  standing  by  him, 
he  said,  '  Here  is  the  man,  Mardonius,  who  shall  render  them 
satisfaction  of  such  kind  as  is  fitting.'  The  herald  accepted 
the  answer,  and  returned  to  report  it.  He  had  been  despatched 
in  haste  in  obedience  to  a  Delphic  oracle,  which  was  afterwards 
believed  to  have  enjoined  acquiescence  in  whatever  reply  the 
application  provoked,  and  was  credited  with  anticipating  an 

1  Schol.  Time.  ii.  13.  a  Pindar,  Isth.  vii.  11. 


i.]  THE  STRATAGEM  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  29 

involuntary  and  significant  presage  of  the  defeat  and  death  of 
Mardonius  at  Plataea. 

The  ample  powers  committed  to  Mardonius  might  reason- 
ably make  him  confident  of  ultimate  success  in  the  enter- 
prise of  which,  in  the  face  of  ardent  opposition,  he  had 
originally  been  the  chief  adviser.  He  was  allowed  to  retain 
all  the  best  troops,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  Persians 
and  Medes  in  equal  numbers — the  latter,  however,  of  inferior 
account ;  he  retained  all  the  Sakae,  Bactrians,  and  Indians, 
both  horse  and  foot,  and  picked  men  from  all  the  other  tribes, 
including  Aethiopians  and  Egyptians  whom  he  had  with- 
drawn at  Phalerum  from  the  fighting  armament  of  the  Phoe- 
nician l  galleys.  The  Persian  Immortals  all  remained  with 
him,  though  their  commander  Hydarnes  declined  to  quit  the 
King.  Of  the  retained  army  as  many  as  60,000  men  were 
to  be  detached  to  accompany  Xerxes  until  he  was  safe  in  Asia, 
and  then  rejoin.  This  important  body  was  under  command 
of  Artabazus  son  of  Pharnaces,  previously  named  as  a  leader 
of  the  Parthians  and  Chorasmians,  who  would  fain  have  made 
the  withdrawal  from  Southern  Hellas  definitive  and  total,  and 
was  now  submitting  only  perforce  and  most  reluctantly  to 
the  superior  influence  of  Mardonius.  The  later  consequences 
of  this  disagreement,  combined  with  his  military  influence, 
which  would  of  necessity  be  confirmed  by  so  important  an 
independent  command,  were  momentous. 

The  resumption  of  operations  southwards  was  necessarily 
deferred  until  the  ensuing  spring;  by  that  time  the  troops 
that  conducted  Xerxes  could  return,  and  Thessaly  meanwhile, 
where  the  Aleuad  Thorax  of  Larissa  was  still  zealous  for  the 
expedition  that  he  had  done  so  much  to  invite,  and  the 
nearer  district  of  2  Macedonia,  afforded  undisturbed  winter 
quarters,  and  the  best  opportunity  of  providing  subsistence 
for  a  renewed  campaign. 

1  Herod,  ix.  31.  3  Id.  via.  126. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   RETREAT   OF   XERXES. ARTABAZUS    IN    THRACE. 

THEMISTOCLES    AT   SPARTA. 

480  B.C. ;  01.  75.  I. 

XERXES,  we  are  told,  reached  the  Hellespont  in  five  and  forty 
days,  and  as  the  term  is  manifestly  mentioned  to  emphasise 
his  precipitate  haste,  it  seems  that  we  must  reckon  it  from 
Attica  and  the  day  of  Salamis.  The  date  of  this  can  only 
be  fixed  generally  as  in  the  autumn,  but  the  retreat  appears 
to  have  been  late  enough  in  the  year  for  at  least  some  of  the 
fugitives  to  suffer  considerably  by  the  incipient,  perhaps  pre- 
mature, inclemency  of  the  Thracian  winter. 

On  arriving  at  Siris  in  Paeonia,  Xerxes  found  that  the 
sacred  chariot,  which  he  had  deposited  there  on  his  way 
south,  was  not  again  forthcoming.  The  historian,  finding, 
as  usual  with  him,  a  Greek  name  for  a  foreign  divinity,  calls 
it  the  chariot  of  Zeus ;  he  notes  l  elsewhere  that  the  Zeus 
of  the  Persians  was  the  general  circle  of  the  heavens.  It  was 
never  ascended  by  man,  but  in  the  pomp  of  the  army  was 
drawn  vacant  before  the  King  by  eight  white  Nisaean  horses 
and  preceded  by  ten  others.  Doubtless  it  is  to  be  regarded  as 
properly  the  chariot  of  the  sun ;  and  this  sacred  character 
explains  its  disappearance  in  this  particular  locality  as  due  to 
something  beyond  common  sacrilegious  rapine.  The  traces 
of  a  native  solar  and  planetary  worship  are  peculiarly  per- 
sistent in  this  region,  and  among  them  this  very  symbol  of  a 
chariot  with  white  horses  is  at  home. 

1  Herod,  i.  131. 


THE  RETREAT  OF  XERXES.  31 

In  Homer  the  Paeonians,  of  a  somewhat  more  western  seat 
on  the  Axius,  appear  under  the  leadership  of  Asteropaeus  and 
Pyraechmes,  significant  names  when  we  read  in  independent 
authorities  that  the  Paeonians  worshipped  the  sun,  of  which 
their  symbol  was  a  small  disk  on  a  high  l  rod. 

If  there  could  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  original  source  of 
the  legend  of  the  chariot  and  white  horses  of  Thracian 
Rhesus,  son  of  Ei'on, — E'ion  at  the  mouth  of  the  Strymon, — 
it  should  be  dispelled  by  Nestor's  comparison  of  the  steeds, 
as  Diomed  and  Ulysses  are  bringing  them  in  through  the 
night,  to  the  solar  2  beams.  The  Magians  of  the  expedi- 
tion of  Xerxes,  by  sacrificing  white  horses  to  the  Strymon, 
had  recognised  the  genius  and  traditions  of  the  3  locality. 

The  Thracians  gave  the  sun  the  name  or  the  epithet  Zeux- 
ippus,  and  it  is  as  '  lovers  of  horses  '  that  the  Thracians  of  the 
Tereus  of  Sophocles  invoke  the  '  holy  radiance  of  the  sun/ 

Thracians  were  now  in  any  case  in  surreptitious  possession 
of  the  Persian  sacred  chariot  and  its  white  horses,  stolen  from 
their  custody,  as  the  Paeonians  professed,  by  the  remoter 
tribes  about  the  sources  of  the  Strymon,  but  purposely 
transferred  to  them  according  to  the  belief  of  Herodotus. 

The  persistence  of  local  characteristics  seems  curiously 
illustrated  by  an  anecdote  of  barbarism  that  the  historian 
next  details — the  blinding  by  a  Thracian  king  of  his  dis- 
obedient sons.  We  are  checked  in  an  inclination  to  disallow 
it  as  a  mere  reflection  from  the  mythical  atrocities  of  Thracian 
Phineus,  by  remembering  how  unnatural  cruelty  of  the  like 
type  repeats  itself  afterwards,  as  if  ineradicably  native  to  the 
region,  in  the  chambers  of  Byzantine  emperors. 

Xerxes,  then,  reached  the  Straits  with  extraordinary  speed, 
and  it  may  be,  as  regards  his  immediate  escort,  with  compa- 
rative immunity ;  but  the  route  was  marked  by  the  falling-out 
of  the  stragglers  and  the  sick,  whom  it  was  a  mere  formality 

1  Max.  Tyr.  Dies.  viii.  c.  8.  2  /Had,  x.  547. 

3  Herod,  vii.  113. 


32  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

to  command  the  exhausted  cities  on  the  line  of  march  to  tend 
and  nourish.  It  fared  necessarily  still  worse  with  the  vast 
crowds  that  had  been  mustered  originally  in  a  spirit  of 
barbaric  display  of  power,  and  that  Mardonius  neither  cared 
to  retain  nor  to  provide  for — the  least  effective,  the  least 
healthy,  with  whatever  supernumeraries  and  camp  followers 
could  only  remain  as  an  encumbrance.  The  sufferings  of  these 
had  commenced  even  before  Thessaly  was  attained.  The  diffi- 
culty of  feeding  the  effective  force  and  of  filling  its  magazines 
for  the  prospective  campaign  was  relieved  by  abandoning  the 
ineffective  to  what  chances  they  had  of  providing  for  them- 
selves unaided  against  such  competitors  for  failing  food  and 
forage. 

Herodotus  tells  how,  when  all  stores  were  exhausted,  the 
growing  crops  were  snatched  from  the  ground,  and  the 
famished  hordes  were  at  length  driven  to  devour  grass 
and  the  bark  and  leaves  of  trees  without  distinction,  culti- 
vated or  wild,  '  and  they  left  nothing ; '  the  work  of  famine 
being  followed  up,  as  ever  in  such  cases,  by  dysentery  and 
pestilence. 

Not  poetry  itself  can  heighten  the  horrors  of  such  a 
retreat.  Imagination  indeed,  drawing  from  its  own  re- 
sources, is  even  more  likely  to  match  the  truth  than  are 
the  prosaic  details  gathered  by  an  historian.  According  to 
Aeschylus,  scarcity  of  water  was  already  fatal  in  Boeotia, 
and  even  insufficiency  of  clothing  during  inclement  and  un- 
sheltered nights,  no  doubt  especially  with  the  tribes  coming 
from  such  climates  as  that  of  India,  and  even  others.  Still 
more  fatal  were  the  combined  effects  of  hunger  and  thirst  in 
Thessaly,  and  even  more  deadly  pestilence  as  they  went  on. 
By  the  time  Thrace  was  reached,  at  least  by  some  lagging 
portion  of  the  wretched  fugitives,  the  nights  were  cold 
enough  to  cover  the  Strymon,  or  possibly  some  other  river 
eastward  of  l  Pangaeus,  with  ice  strong  enough  to  bear — an 

1  Aeflch.  Pereae. 


ii.]  THE  RETREAT  OF  XERXES.  33 

assistance  for  the  moment ;  but  the  very  sun-god  of  the 
locality  seemed  in  league  against  the  unhappy  train  upon 
the  way  so  treacherously  shortened.  Those  who  passed  early 
were  saved  ;  but,  as  day  advanced,  '  the  bright  circle  of  the 
sun,  ablaze  with  beams,  warmed  the  ford  with  fire,  and  split 
it  in  the  midst — happiest  then  he  who  was  first  to  perish.' 
Of  those  left  behind,  and  who  had  to  make  a  long  circuit 
through  Thrace,  few  ever  reached  their  native  land.  Hasty 
and  uncontrolled  indulgence  in  more  abundant  food  as  soon 
as  it  was  obtainable,  and — it  is  especially  noticed — substitu- 
tion of  other  drink  for  water,  caused  large  fatality  even  after 
Asia  was  regained. 

Another  story,  in  itself  improbable  enough,  was  current, 
that  Xerxes  embarked  for  Asia  in  a  Phoenician  ship  at  E'ion 
on  the  Strymon ;  it  was  told  apparently  for  the  sake  of  an 
illustration,  one  out  of  several  of  the  kind,  of  the  cruel  and 
irrational  punctilios  of  the  court  of  an  Asiatic  despot.  The 
ship,  so  went  the  tale,  was  endangered  by  a  storm,  overladen 
as  it  was  with  Persians  of  high  rank.  The  ship-master, 
appealed  to  by  the  alarmed  Xerxes,  declared  that  the  only 
hope  of  escape  was  to  lighten  it  of  passengers.  The  Per- 
sians were  at  once  advertised  by  the  King  of  the  opportu- 
nity for  their  services,  and  at  once  making  their  parting 
prostrations,  they  one  after  another,  as  if  still  with  observ- 
ance of  due  precedence,  leaped  into  the  sea.  The  first  act 
of  Xerxes  upon  landing  in  safety  was  to  reward  the  ship- 
master for  saving  the  royal  life,  and  the  next  to  have  his 
head  struck  off  for  causing  the  destruction  of  so  many 
Persians.  The  conditions  of  giving  wise  advice  to  a  tyrant 
here  are  essentially  the  same  as  are  illustrated  in  the  subject 
of  the  Council  of  Darius  on  the  Naples  vase.  The  counsellor 
there  stands  on  the  golden  plinth  which  he  will  receive  as 
reward  for  his  advice — with,  however,  a  scourging  for  his 
presumption  in  offering  1  it.  Herodotus  discredits  the  story, 

1  Aelian  and  Ctesias. 
D 


34  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

on  the  ground  that  the  Phoenician  rowers  would  have  been 
sacrificed  in  preference ;  and  so  leaves  us  to  debate  whether 
he  could  have  overlooked  the  enhanced  peril  of  a  storm-tossed 
galley  when  reft  of  oarsmen,  or  what  escape  he  could  imagine 
from  it.  A  more  reasonable  objection,  provided  in  his  refer- 
ence to  the  local  tradition  of  the  Abderites,  that  Xerxes  passed 
through  their  city  on  his  return,  only  invalidates  the  statement 
of  his  port  of  embarkation.  The  further  tradition  of  Abdera, 
that  it  was  there  that  the  King  first  loosened  zone  after 
quitting  Athens,  may  be  taken  as  expressing  at  least  the  state 
of  discomposure  in  which  he  arrived.  The  fleet  which  had 
retired,  or  rather  escaped,  from  Salamis  and  the  Saronic 
Gulf,  duly  reached  the  Hellespont,  where  it  was  the  more 
needed  as  the  bridge  had  already  been  carried  away  by  storms, 
and  there  aided  the  transit  of  the  King  and  some  incon- 
siderable bodies  of  troops  and  stragglers.  It  then  retired  for 
the  winter  to  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor — most  of  the  ships  to 
Cumae,  the  rest  to  the  harbour  of  Samos,  where  the  Samian 
Theomestor,  son  of  Androdamas,  in  requital  of  good  service 
done  at  Salamis,  was  established  by  the  Persian  in  the  autho- 
rity of  Tyrant — that  is,  under  such  circumstances,  of  Satrap. 

Artabazus,  having  so  far  accomplished  his  task  and  seen 
the  King  in  safety,  turned  his  face,  however  unwillingly, 
again  westward,  along  with  his  large  force,  to  rejoin  Mar- 
donius  and  the  main  army.  On  his  way  he  halted  at  the 
Chalcidic  peninsula,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Thermaic  gulf. 
From  thence  he  could  move  south  in  time  for  operations  in 
spring,  and  could  meanwhile  more  conveniently  obtain  sub- 
sistence for  his  forces;  he  had  there  also  the  opportunity  to 
repress  in  the  interval  some  examples  of  defection  which,  if 
neglected,  might  spread,  and  compromise  communications  of 
which  he  best  knew  the  precariousness,  and  was  well  disposed 
to  forbode  the  coming  need. 

Potidaea,  on  the  isthmus  of  the  fertile  peninsula  of  Pallene, 
was  already  in  declared,  and  Olynthus,  in  less  secure  position, 


ii.]  ARTABA.ZUS  IN  THRACE.  35 

suspected  as  on  the  verge  of  revolt.  The  latter  town  was 
occupied  by  Bottiaeans,  who  had  been  driven  eastward  from 
the  Thermaic  gulf  by  Macedonian  encroachment,  and  as  a 
lately  Hellenised,  or  at  best  semi-Hellenic  l  tribe,  and  perhaps 
from  the  circumstances  of  their  settlement,  seem  to  have 
been  out  of  sympathy  with  their  immediate  neighbours. 
Olynthus  was  in  consequence  attacked  by  Artabazus,  and  on 
its  capture  the  inhabitants  were  carried  out  into  an  adjacent 
marsh  and  there  massacred,  as  a  measure  preparatory  to  the 
delivery  of  the  town  into  the  keeping  of  Critobulus  of  Torone, 
on  the  adjacent  Sithonian  peninsula,  and  to  the  introduction 
of  a  Chalcidic  population.  In  this  manner,  says  Herodotus, 
Olynthus — which  was  destined  to  a  conspicuous  place  in  later 
history — became,  like  its  neighbours,  Chalcidic. 

With  Potidaea  the  Persians  had  far  different  fortune.  This 
city — which  also  we  shall  soon  hear  of  again — was  a  Co- 
rinthian colony,  and  named  from  the  god  Poseidon,  who,  in 
colony  as  in  metropolis,  could  look  down  from  his  temple 
upon  a  sea  on  either  hand.  The  towns  within  the  peninsula 
contributed  to  the  defence  of  Potidaea,  which,  by  its  position 
as  a  bar  to  the  Isthmus,  was  the  bulwark  of  their  own  im- 
munity. But  the  severity  of  the  treatment  of  Olynthus, 
while  it  nerved  resistance  generally,  was  calculated  to  make 
some  timid  traitors.  In  the  course  of  the  siege  a  citizen  was 
struck  in  the  shoulder  by  an  arrow,  and  the  bystanders  who 
hastened  to  his  assistance  found  that  the  shaft  was  laden 
with  a  missive,  which  had  been  intended  for  traitorous  hands. 
It  was  at  once  taken  to  the  generals,  who  were  thus  put  on 
their  guard  against  a  clandestine  correspondence  carried  on 
by  Timoxeinus,  commander  of  their  Scionaean  allies,  which 
might  otherwise  have  had  serious  consequences.  The  warning 
had  its  value,  though,  for  some  unexplained  politic  tenderness 
to  Scione,  the  matter  was  hushed  up.  At  last,  after  three 

1  Plut.  Thcscns,  6 ;  Graec.  Q.  35  :  Strabo,  vi.  3 ;  ii.  6. 
D  2 


36  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

months  of  urgent  but  vain  siege,  an  unusually  low  ebb  of 
the  sea  appeared  to  furnish  Artabazus  with  an  opportunity 
of  turning  the  defences  and  penetrating  into  Pallene  by  land. 
Two  out  of  five  divisions  intended  for  the  service  had  passed 
through  the  shoal  water,  and  the  others  were  on  their  way, 
when  the  sea  returned  in  flood  of  a  volume  which  natives  said 
was  of  the  very  rarest  occurrence.  Those  who  were  unable  to 
swim  perished  at  once,  the  remainder  fell  by  the  hands  of  the 
besieged,  who  sallied  upon  them  in  boats.  The  Potidaeans 
naturally  recognised  a  special  interposition  of  their  god  to 
avenge  the  desecration  of  his  temple  and  statue  by  the  Per- 
sians in  the  suburbs ;  '  and  so  saying,'  adds  Herodotus,  '  to 
my  mind  they  say  well.'  Upon  this  failure  Artabazus  drew 
off,  and  marched  in  due  time  with  the  survivors  of  his  forces 
to  join  Mardonius  in  Thessaly. 

Meanwhile  the  confederate  Greeks  had  been  occupied  in 
the  partition  of  the  spoils,  and,  which  was  a  far  more  delicate 
matter,  the  honours,  of  their  victory.  In  the  division  of  the 
spoil  the  Aristeia  were  assigned  to  the  Aeginetans  as  a 
nation,  the  Athenians  obtaining  only  the  second  place;  of 
Aeginetan  individuals,  Polycritus  was  placed  first,  of  Athe- 
nians, Eumenes  and  Ameinias  (of  the  deme  Pallene  accord- 
ing to  1  Herodotus,  of  Decelea  according  to  Plutarch), 
whom  Diodorus  affirms  to  have  been  a  brother  of  Aes- 
chylus. The  poet  in  the  2  Persae  marks  the  exploit  of 
Ameinias  in  commencing  the  battle  with  noteworthy  em- 
phasis ;  his  suppression  of  the  name  cannot  be  taken  as  an 
argument  either  way.  For  this  pre-eminence  of  Aegina  the 
Delphic  oracle  afterwards  demanded  a  special  acknowledg- 
ment, which  was  rendered  by  the  island  in  the  form  of  a 
dedicated  bronze  mast  with  three  golden  stars,  symbolical 
perhaps  of  Apollo,  Artemis,  and  Latona,  though  with  equal 
probability  of  Dionysus,  Apollo,  and  Artemis.  The  animus 

1  Herod,  viii.  84.  a  415  417. 


ii.]  ARTABAZUS  IN  THRACE.  37 

of  the  inspirers  of  the  oracle — to  confer  divine  sanction  on 
a  questionable  adjudication — is  less  equivocal.  A  further 
illustration  of  Delphic  partisanship  occurred  in  the  rejection 
of  a  dedication  of  Median  spoils  offered  by  Themistocles  on 
his  own  account. 

The  precedence  assigned  in  such  a  manner  to  Aegina 
above  its  ancient  rival,  and  of  late  threatening  and  en- 
croaching enemy,  Athens,  could  not  but  tend  to  strengthen 
and  revive  the  acerbity  of  a  party  feeling  to  which  the  Athe- 
nians afterwards  take  credit  to  themselves  for  being  Superior. 
The  Spartans,  whose  influence  was  also  predominant  at  Delphi, 
might  naturally  be  inclined  towards  Aeginetans  as  fellow- 
Dorians,  rather  than  to  Ionian  Athens ;  but  to  indulge  such, 
feelings  now,  and  under  such  relative  circumstances,  was  to 
take  sides  in  a  quarrel  that  had  been  nobly  set  aside  in  a 
moment  of  common  peril,  and  which  it  would  have  been  well 
to  consider  as  extinguished  for  ever.  Themistocles  had  been 
earnest  before  the  war  in  urging  his  countrymen  to  establish 
a  decided  naval  predominance  over  Aegina,  with  ulterior  views 
that  were  not  less  alarming  because  undefined ;  and  he  had 
made  the  most  of  every  pretext,  and  some  fair  ones  had  not 
been  wanting,  to  impute  to  the  commercial  islanders  a  dispo- 
sition to  Medism  ;  Aeginetan  citizens  had  certainly  struggled 
nobly  to  purge  their  country  of  the  charge,  but,  as  there  was 
a  serious  slight  implied  to  Athens  in  subordinating  her  ser- 
vices to  those  of  Aegina,  so  the  selection  for  the  personal  prize 
of  valour  of  precisely  that  Aeginetan  who  in  the  midst  of  the 
fight  had  upbraided  Themistocles  as  a  false  2  accuser,  was  not 
likely  to  soften  the  sentiments  of  the  powerful  Athenian 
towards  his  country. 

Themistocles  was  to  experience  another  rebuff,  when  the 
Greeks,  after  the  division  of  the  spoil,  sailed  to  the  Isthmus 
solemnly  to  adjudge  the  prize  to  him  who  had  deserved  best, 

1  Tbuc.  i.  74.  2  Herod,  viii.  93. 


38  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CIIAP. 

not  in  the  recent  battle,  but  in  the  war  at  large.  There 
on  the  altar  of  Poseidon  the  assembled  generals  of  the  con- 
federate states  deposited  votes  for  the  first  and  second  in 
desert.  Examination  of  the  ballots  showed  that  each  voter 
had  received  one,  presumably  his  own,  for  the  first  prize  ;  as 
none  had  the  requisite  majority,  the  ballot  for  this  was  void, 
and  with  it,  apparently  as  a  consequence,  that  for  the  second, 
which  by  a  large  majority  was  due  to  Themistocles.  And  so 
the  congress  separated.  Themistocles,  however,  immediately 
on  its  breaking  up,  proceeded  direct  to  Sparta,  and  there,  by 
a  strangely  sudden  revulsion,  of  which  we  look  in  vain  for 
an  explanation,  received  compensation  for  the  slight  inflicted 
by  the  general  congress,  in  honours  such  as  Sparta  had  never 
before  conferred  on  a  l  foreigner. 

The  most  indulgent  conclusion  to  draw  from  this  vehement 
demonstration  would  seem  to  be,  either  that  the  sentiments 
of  Sparta,  however  declared,  had  not  told  upon  votes  when 
delivered  by  secret  ballot,  or  that  the  result  of  it  was  in  fact 
arranged  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  bringing  into  com- 
parison the  claims  of  Themistocles  and  Eurybiades,  and  in 
order  to  avoid  preferring  either  before  the  other.  At  Sparta 
the  same  difficulty  did  not  exist ;  there,  at  home  and  among 
his  own  countrymen,  Eurybiades  had  the  first  and  rightful 
claim  to  the  olive  crown  which  he  was  the  first  to  receive 
from  them ;  a  like  crown  was  then  assigned  to  Themistocles ; 
and  so  exceptional  was  such  an  honour  from  Sparta  to  a 
stranger,  that  no  derogation  was  implied  in  his  receiving  it 
after  their  own  countryman.  That  it  was  distinctly  assigned 
in  recognition  of  sagacity  and  dexterous  management  might 
enhance  its  value  to  him,  and  would  carry  no  offence  to  the 
Spartan. 

But,  making  all  allowance  for  a  truly  enthusiastic  and 
generous  recognition  of  the  services  of  Themistocles,  some- 

1  Thuc.  i.  74. 


ii.]  THEMISTOCLES  AT  SPARTA,  39 

thing  still  remains  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  ordinary 
laws  of  unusual  and  extravagant  gratitude,  when  we  read 
that  he  received  at  his  departure  the  handsomest  chariot 
Sparta  could  provide,  and,  after  abundant  eulogiums,  was 
conducted  to  the  frontiers — an  honour  entirely  without  pre- 
cedent— by  the  chosen  troop  of  three  hundred  mounted 
Spartans.  It  had,  in  fact,  become  apparent  by  this  time  that 
the  liberation  of  Greece  was  not  completed  by  the  victory 
of  Salamis.  The  fleet  of  Athens,  not  to  say  the  talent  of 
her  general,  could  ill  be  spared  if  the  conflict,  the  gravity 
of  which  had  now  been  brought  home,  was  to  go  on ;  and 
the  influence  of  Themistocles  with  his  countrymen, — unless 
his  sympathies,  irritated  like  theirs  by  the  invidious  pre- 
cedence voted  to  Aegina,  were  soothed  and  conciliated  to 
Greece  by  the  glory  he  loved, — might  be  diverted  to  a  project 
which,  already  significantly  mooted,  had  probably  found  some 
serious  reception,  namely,  the  entire  withdrawal  of  the  fleet, 
and  the  transference  of  the  population  of  Attica,  dispossessed 
and  insulted  as  it  now  was,  to  new  seats  in  Italy. 

At  a  less  critical  time  serious  danger  might  have  been  in- 
curred among  jealous  fellow-citizens  by  Athenians,  who  could 
harbour  permanent  resentment  against  the  appearance  of  very 
moderate  assumption  even  in  Miltiades.  As  it  was,  the  cavil 
that  was  one  day  to  ruin  him  came  from  an  insignificant 
quarter,  and  was  lightly  thrown  aside  with  his  ever  prompt 
facility  of  sharp  retort.  Timodemus,  of  the  deme  Aphidnae, 
gained  little  by  his  carping  sneer, — that  it  was  on  account  of 
Athens,  and  not  of  himself,  that  he  had  been  so  honoured  in 
Lacedaemon.  '  Exactly  so,'  was  the  reply ;  '  and  had  I  be- 
longed to  the  islet  Belbinis  I  should  have  had  as  little  respect 
from  the  Spartans  as  you  and  men  like  you  command,  Athe- 
nian though  you  1are.'  Certain  however  it  is  that  the  name 
of  Themistocles  does  for  a  time  somewhat  unexpectedly  lapse 

1  Herod,  viii.  125. 


40  HISOTRY  OF  GREECE. 

from  the  story ;  though  the  fact  that  Xanthippus,  father  of 
Pericles,  next  appears  in  command  of  the  fleet  may  be  simply 
due  to  the  Athenian  rule  of  succession  in  command,  and  not 
in  itself  be  any  confirmation  of  the  statement  of  Diodorus, 
which  may  only  express  an  inference,  that  Themistocles  was 
superseded  through  popular  discontent  at  these  personal 
glories. 


CHAPTER    III. 

MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA. — SPIRIT  AND  TEMPER 
OF  ATHENIANS  AND  SPARTANS. 

B.C.  479,  Spring ;  01.  75.  I. 

THE  approach  of  spring-,  says  Herodotus,  and  the  presence 
of  Mardonius  in  Thessaly,  roused  the  Greeks  to  renewed 
activity.  The  mustering  of  their  land  force  was  a  matter  of 
time;  but  no  ships  were  assembled  early  at  Aegina  under 
the  Spartan  Heracleid  king  Leotychides,  as  General  Com- 
mander and  Admiral — Xanthippus,  son  of  Ariphron,  being 
Commander  of  the  Athenians.  The  first  incident  here  was 
the  arrival  of  envoys  from  Ionia,  eager  to  concert  an  imme- 
diate attempt  for  its  liberation.  The  envoys  themselves  were 
men  who  had  planned  to  revolutionize  Chios  by  the  assassin- 
ation of  Strattis,  who  had  been  established  there  as  tyrant  by 
the  Persians  since  the  time  of  the  expedition  of  Darius  to  the 
1  Danube.  Foiled  by  the  treachery  of  an  associate,  the  con- 
spirators escaped  and  made  straight  for  Sparta,  and  now  came 
on  to  the  fleet  to  urge  an  instant  movement  on  Ionia.  One 
of  their  number,  says  the  historian,  was  Herodotus,  the  son 
of  Basilei'des,  who  is  evidently  distinguished  in  this  way  from 
the  rest  for  some  particular  reason.  It  is  plausibly  conjectured 
that  he  was  a  relative  of  the  writer,  his  namesake;  it  may 
be  said,  perhaps  as  plausibly,  that  from  him  may  have  come 
direct  the  pettish  complaint  and  sarcasm  that  it  was  with 
great  difficulty  they  could  induce  the  fleet  to  advance  even 

1  Herod,  iv.  138. 


42  U 1 STORY  OF  GREECE.  [CIIAP. 

as  far  as  Delos,  '  for  everything  beyond  was  alarming  to  the 
Hellenes,  who,  unacquainted  with  the  localities,  fancied  that 
all  were  crowded  with  hostile  forces;  and  as  to  Samos,  the 
station  of  the  Persian  fleet,  conceived  it  to  be  as  distant  as  the 
Pillars  of  Hercules.  So  that  it  came  to  this :  the  barbarians 
were  too  much  out  of  heart  to  sail  further  westward  than 
Samos,  and  the  Hellenes  would  not  move  at  the  solicitation 
of  the  Chians  further  eastward  than  Delos,  and  fear  occu- 
pied the  interval  between  them.'  In  every  word  we  catch 
the  tones  of  the  desperate  and  disappointed  exile.  The  im- 
putation attaches  principally  to  the  Spartan  as  Admiral,  and, 
thus  read,  glances  fairly  at  the  home-keeping  habits  of  the 
Lacedaemonians,  and  their  systematic  aversion — so  strange  to 
the  maritime  lonians — to  enterprises  beyond  the  sea.  The 
wild  projects  of  Aristagoras  might  not  unreasonably  be  dis- 
missed by  Spartans  upon  mere  statement  of  their  geographical 
1scope,  but  even  the  Mitylenians,  though  much  later,  and 
more  moderate  in  their  request,  have  to  apologise,  in  soliciting 
their  aid,  for  the  remoteness  of  2  Lesbos. 

This  is  one  of  the  occasions  when  Herodotus  seems  to  speak 
of  the  Dorians  as  the  Hellenes  distinctively,  and  so  far  in 
consistency  with  his  explicit  theory,  that  that  term  as  com- 
monly applied  comprised  a  number  of  tribes,  which  had  only 
become  secondarily  hellenised  by  constant  intercourse  or  sub- 
jugation, and  included  even  the  Athenians — who  were  in  truth 
principally  a  contrasted  Pelasgian  stock,  and  others  far  less 
cognate  than  they. 

There  was  now,  however,  sufficient  reason  why  both  the 
Athenian  and  Spartan  commanders  should  be  content  not  to 
proceed  beyond  an  intermediate  position  of  guard  and  ob- 
servation, and  to  consider  a  movement  upon  Ionia  premature. 
No  success  in  this  quarter  could  affect  the  impending  conflict 
between  the  land  forces,  which  must  needs  be  decided  on 

1  Herod,  v.  50.  3  Thuc.  iii.  13. 


in.]        MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.         43 

Grecian  soil.  The  mere  weakening  of  the  fleet,  even  in  a 
successful  conflict,  would  be  disastrous,  and  might  leave  the 
coasts  of  Peloponnesus  exposed  to  a  descent.  The  Persian 
fleet  seemed  inclined  to  keep  quiet  at  present,  and  nothing 
better  could  be  desired.  The  enemy  were,  in  fact,  concen- 
trated at  Samos  with  300  ships,  including  some  lonians ;  the 
fighting  crews  of  most  were  Persians  and  Medes,  and  so,  to 
judge  by  their  names,  were  the  commanders  also — Mardontes 
son  of  Bagaius,  Artayntes  son  of  Artachaeus,  and  his  relative 
Ithamitres.  On  their  part  they  were  chiefly  concerned  to 
overawe  Ionia,  were  quite  indisposed  to  risk  another  collision 
by  moving  westward,  having  indeed  received  neither  summons 
nor  command  to  do  so,  and  only  discussed  plans  and  pro- 
jects while  they  waited  with  impatience  for  news  of  the  more 
hopeful  action  of  Mardonius. 

In  the  council  of  Mardonius  there  was  a  mixture  of 
native  Greek  and  Persian  elements  less  divided  in  interests 
than  in  opinions  and  predilections,  as  to  the  policy  that 
would  best  promote  them. 

Mardonius  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  was  perfectly  out  of 
sympathy  with  Artabazus,  the  next  most  important  Persian 
in  the  expedition,  and  leaned  in  preference  on  the  Theban  or 
Thessalian  oligarchs,  who,  however  they  might  differ  as  to 
the  mode  of  prosecuting  the  war,  were  at  least  as  eager  for 
success  as  himself,  and  had  a  knowledge  of  the  country  and 
of  the  characteristics  of  his  opponents,  to  which,  since  he  had 
learned  to  distinguish  and  respect  them,  he  found  himself 
under  obligation  to  defer.  But  he  did  so  still  with  some 
impatience  and  some  wavering.  His  own  desire  was  for 
instant,  dashing,  brilliant  action.  He  had  all  the  barbarian 
confidence  in  masses, — he  was  proud  of  his  position  at  the 
head  of  an  army  splendidly  equipped,  which,  numerous  as 
it  l  was,  and  recently  increased  by  levies  from  Thrace, 

1  Diod.  xi.  38. 


44  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Macedonia,  and  the  Medising  cities,  comprised  selections  of 
all  arms  from  an  immensely  larger  number.  He  had  as 
yet  witnessed  no  fair  defeat  of  the  veterans  of  his  own  race, 
and  had  sincerely  represented  his  own  conviction  when  he 
assured  Xerxes  that  Salamis  was  lost  by  landsmen  being 
set  to  cope  on  the  sea  with  sailors,  and  by  the  cowardice 
of  a  mob  of  Phoenicians,  Egyptians,  Syrians,  and  Cilicians. 
The  Thebans,  on  the  other  hand,  had  serious  mistrust 
of  even  the  best  of  the  Orientals  as  opposed  to  the  Greek 
hoplite,  and  had  seen  enough  to  judge  well  the  material 
of  which  each  was  made.  Preponderant  as  the  numbers  of 
the  Persians  therefore  might  be  in  any  case,  they  knew  that 
the  fewer  their  opponents  the  better ;  they  would  deem  no 
delay  tedious  that  might  serve  to  divide  them,  and  had  their 
own  opinions  how  this  was  to  be  done  :  they  especially  urged 
Mardonius  to  be  lavish  in  bribes  to  the  men  in  power  in  the 
several  states ;  he  would  in  this  way  break  Hellas  asunder,  be 
in  possession  of  all  their  counsels  without  trouble,  and  easily 
subdue  the  obstinate  by  aid  of  the  factious.  To  this  party 
of  councillors  we  may  also  trace  the  politic  skill  with  which 
the  machinery  of  oracles  and  prophecies  was  set  in  motion  to 
act  upon  the  general  Greek  mind,  and  indeed  with  a  certain" 
degree  of  effect  to  control  and  hamper  Mardonius  himself.  So 
the  Pisistratids  had,  in  the  first  instance,  made  use  of  the 
prophetic  reputation  of  the  soothsayer  Onomacritus  to  decide 
Xerxes  for  the  expedition,  and  had  found  the  man  not  the  less 
fit  for  their  purposes  because  in  earlier  days  he  had  been  ex- 
pelled by  Hipparchus  from  Athens  as  a  detected  forger, — a 
fraudulent  interpolator  of  the  oracles  of  Musaeus,  which  he 
was  professing  to  arrange.  The  Athenians  were  of  all  the 
Greeks  peculiarly  apt  to  be  worked  upon  by  superstition  pre- 
sented in  this  form, — their  orators  continued  to  appeal  in  all 
gravity  to  the  prejudice,  even  while  it  was  a  standing  joke 
upon  the  comic  stage, — and  it  was  upon  the  Athenians  that 
the  first  attempts  were  to  be  'made  towards  breaking  up  the 


in.]       MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.          45 

confederation.  The  Theban  oracles  of  Ismenian  Apollo  and  of 
Amphiaraus  were  consulted,  the  first  by  the  medium  of  priests, 
interpreters  of  sacrifices,  the  latter  through  dreams  invited  by 
sleep  upon  skins  of  victims  within  the  sacred  precincts.  At 
the  temple  of  Ptoau  Apollo,  on  lake  Copais,  three  citizens  were 
chosen  to  accompany  the  Carian  agent  of  the  Persian  into  the 
fane  and  write  down  the  response ;  it  was  a  tale  of  the  The- 
ban s  which  proves  at  any  rate  a  sense  of  mystification  in  the 
transactions,  that  the  oracle  was  delivered  in  a  language  un- 
intelligible to  them,  and  that  the  Carian,  snatching  the  tablet 
from  their  hands,  wrote  it  hastily  down,  and  carried  it  off 
to  Thessaly.  Trophonius  was  consulted  in  his  cave,  even  as 
he  was  by  the  traveller  Pausanias  long  after  the  Christian 
aera, — and  the  Phocian  oracle  at  Abae.  Herodotus  never 
heard  the  particular  enquiries  or  responses,  and  he  says 
nothing  in  this  place  of  an  application  to  Delphi  ;  but 
at  a  fitting  time  Mardonius  had  a  Delphic  oracle  also  to 
propound,  couched  in  terms  which,  but  that  the  instincts 
of  impostors  have  ever  the  same  source  of  inspiration,  might 
have  been  imitated  by  an  astrologer  of  Louis  the  Eleventh. 

The  reception  of  oracles  from  such  sources  was  followed 
naturally  by  the  initiation  of  intrigues  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Medising  Greeks.  Money,  destined  for  the  hands  of  men 
in  power  in  the  various  cities,  found  its  way  into  the  l  Pe- 
loponnesus; but  there  is  no  positive  evidence  that  it  was 
to  be  credited  with  any  of  the  dilatoriness  which  caused 
so  much  difficulty  later,  but  might  be  due  to  other  familiar 
causes.  Against  the  Argives  alone,  who  had  all  along  refused 
to  give  aid  to  Hellas  against  the  Mede, — being  jealous  of 
Sparta  on  much  the  same  grounds  as  the  Thebans  of  Athens, 
— is  there  any  charge  of  directly  abetting  the  later  attempt  of 
the  invader.  Even  they  only  send  information  of  but  little 
value,  although  certainly  in  terms  which  imply  that  they  had 

1  Diod.  si.  28. 


46  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

engaged,  and   no  doubt  had  been  paid  for  engaging,  to  do 
much  more. 

The  temptations  which  were  held  out  to  the  Athenians  to 
desert  the  cause  were  more  substantial  and  important ;  and 
to  men  who  were  incapable  of  understanding  the  enthusiasm 
of  free  nationality  and  honour,  might  well  seem  to  promise 
a  result.  Attica  had  been  ravaged  once,  and  renewed  invasion 
threatened  the  loss  of  a  second,  probably  in  any  case  but 
scanty,  harvest,  and  the  country  was  now  again  exposed  to 
the  first  attack  of  overwhelming  forces,  and  might  expect  to 
remain  the  cross-road  and  intermediate  fighting-ground  of  all 
the  l  armies.  The  heartburnings  caused  by  the  votes  at  Salamis 
and  the  Isthmus  could  not  be  unknown  northwards,  any  more 
than  the  high  hand  and  ambitious  pretensions  of  the  city, 
which  were  not  only  unchecked,  but  even  still  further  ex- 
cited, by  recent  events.  Some  hints  of  covert  intimations  to 
Xerxes  from  Greek  commanders  may  have  helped  to  make 
the  project  seem  more  practicable.  And  a  good  price  might 
well  be  offered  and  even  paid, — though  that  might  be  optional 
afterwards, — if  Athens  could  be  drawn  to  make  common  cause 
with  Persia ;  for,  even  if  the  Isthmus  could  be  forced,  it  would 
manifestly  be  perilous  to  occupy  Peloponnesus  with  no  com- 
mand of  the  sea  to  secure  supplies  or  retreat  by  any  other 
route.  It  was  indeed  too  late  to  revert  to  the  rejected  counsel 
of  Demaratus  and  threaten  Sparta  from  the  sea  with  a 
detachment  of  the  Persian  fleet,  but  an  Athenian  alliance 
would  restore  the  lost  opportunity.  Communication  was 
therefore  opened  through  Alexander,  King  of  Macedon,  who 
was  known  to  be  recognised  by  the  Athenians  as  their  prox- 
enus,  or  national  host  and  guest.  He  was  trusted  by  Mar- 
donius  from  his  intimate  Persian  connections,  which  read 
like  the  presage  of  some  later  Macedonian  history  ;  his  sister 
Gygaia  had  married  a  Persian  noble  named  Bonbares,  and  her 

1   Ilcrod.  viii.  140. 


in.]       MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA,         47 

son  Amyntas  was  established  by  the  King  as  lord  of  Alabanda 
in  Phrygia ;  but  true  to  the  policy  of  double-dealing  which 
was  the  enduring  characteristic  of  his  dynasty,  it  was  by  his 
warning  of  Persian  movements  that  Themistocles  had  been 
enabled  to  withdraw  in  time  from  the  too  advanced  position 
that  he  had  taken  up  at  the  opening  of  the  war,  on  the 
northern  frontier  of  Thessaly. 

The  message  was  delivered  to  the  Athenians,  probably  by 
way  of  flattery,  as  coming  direct  from  Xerxes.  Mardonius 
had  been  commanded  to  pass  over  all  former  injuries, — the 
rankling  Sardis  no  less  than  Salamis, — and,  on  condition  of 
an  alliance  with  him,  was  commissioned  to  restore  their  terri- 
tory, with  any  addition  they  might  desire,  and  their  inde- 
pendence ;  and,  furthermore,  to  re-erect  all  sacred  structures 
that  he  had  burnt.  The  offer  '  of  freedom  with  no  fraud  or 
deception  '  was  of  course  backed  by  formidable  statements  of 
Persian  power,  and,  with  rather  less  judgment,  by  emphasis 
on  the  distinction  of  the  Athenians  being  selected  by  the 
Great  King  from  the  rest  of  the  Greeks,  for  condonation  of 
offences  and  a  proposal  of  friendship.  The  news  of  this  com- 
munication caused  the  greatest  alarm  at  Sparta,  especially 
in  connection  with  the  currency  of  a  prophecy,  which  Hero- 
dotus says  they  called  to  mind,  but  which  was  probably 
promulgated  for  the  nonce,  to  the  effect  that  Medes  and 
Athenians  in  alliance  were  destined  to  expel  the  Spartans 
and  all  other  Dorians  from  Peloponnesus.  The  Athenians 
could  not  be  unwilling  to  foster  the  panic  by  a  temporary 
suspense,  if  only  to  stimulate  the  Lacedaemonians  to  more 
decided  engagements  than  they  had  yet  seemed  disposed 
to  commit  themselves  to  or  to  entertain.  It  is  difficult  to 
suppose  that  the  true  scope  of  the  crisis  was  not  now 
appreciated  by  the  most  influential  men  among  them,  but 
their  national  maxim,  to  decline  sustained  efforts  at  a  distance 
from  their  frontiers,  was  notorious ;  and  their  inveterate 
reticence,  which  could  not  but  favour  apprehensions  of  infirmity 


48  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  purpose,  if  not  of  faithlessness,  was  most  exasperating  to 
the  Athenians, — even  had  they  no  reason  to  suspect  that  there 
still  existed  a  jealousy  of  Athens,  and  an  unwillingness  to 
give  her  premature,  or  too  hearty,  support.  But,  for  once, 
the  urgency  of  the  situation  made  the  Spartan  appeal  distinct 
enough,  and  even  oblivious  for  a  moment,  of  the  narrower 
affectations  of  Laconic  brevity.  '  Desertion  of  the  cause  of 
Hellas,'  they  represented,  'by  those  who  had,  by  their  own 
action  and  for  ends  of  their  own,  provoked  the  invasion, 
would  neither  be  just  nor  decorous;  that  servitude  should 
be  brought  upon  Hellas  by  the  Athenians  of  all  others,  who 
had  from  the  earliest  days  been  champions  of  liberty,  was 
intolerable.  That  they  suffered  by  peculiar  exposure  in  the 
contest  was  lamented  by  the  Lacedaemonians  and  their  allies, 
who  would  gladly  contribute  to  the  support  of  their  families 
so  long  as  the  war  should  continue.  Alexander  was  himself 
a  tyrant,  and,  as  the  natural  accomplice  of  a  tyrant,  had 
softened  down  the  message  of  Mardonius,  whose  terms  as 
delivered  to  others  were  imperious  and  insulting  in  the 
last  degree:  but  the  Athenians,  if  indeed  in  their  right 
senses,  —  Alexander  had  begun  with  "  how  can  you  be 
so  mad  ?  "  —  would  know  that  neither  faith  nor  truth  are 
to  be  found  in  the  barbarians,  and  would  accede  to  no  such 
proposals.' 

Thus  far  the  Spartans,  who  characteristically  did  not 
spend  a  word  upon  the  ultimate  chances  of  success  in  the 
noble  resistance  they  recommended,  though  they  may  have 
given  offence  by  assuming  the  attraction  of  Persian  gold 
for  Athens  under  the  pinch  of  her  present  destitution.  In 
the  same  spirit  the  Athenians  replied  to  Alexander  that  the 
numerical  superiority  of  the  Persian  forces  was  known  to 
them  before,  and  in  any  case  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  matter  in  question, — their  resolution  to  fight  in 
defence  of  their  liberty  to  the  very  last.  With  an  image 
which  glanced  not  only  at  the  sun-worship  of  Persia,  but  at 


in.]       MARDON1US  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.         49 

the  tradition  of  the  kingly  rise  of  Alexander's  own  l  family, 
he  was  commissioned  to  reply  to  Mardonius — '  So  long  as  the 
sun  travels  by  the  same  path  in  which  it  is  now  moving,  the 
Athenians  will  never  come  to  accord  with  Xerxes,  but  will 
perseveringly  resist  him,  putting  trust  for  allies  in  the  gods 
and  the  heroes,  whose  temples  and  images  he  has  irreverently 
2  burnt. 

Alexander  himself  was  warned,  friend  and  well-wisher  as 
the  Athenians  would  willingly  retain  him,  to  come  no  more 
on  such  an  unworthy  and  ignoble  errand.  It  were  handsome 
at  least  to  think  that  such  an  expostulation,  and  the  example 
of  a  resolution  so  contrasted  with  that  of  the  Thessalians, — 
who  had  frankly  announced  that  unless  supported  in  bearing 
the  brunt  of  the  Persian  approach,  they  should  as  a  matter  of 
course  make  terms  with  him  for  themselves,  and  had  actually 
done  3so, — may  possibly  have  roused  or  strengthened  the 
more  generous  though  latent  sympathies  of  the  Macedonian, 
who  claimed  Hellenic  and  even  Heracleidan  descent,  and 
have  had  influence  on  the  circumstances  under  which  he 
reappears  in  history. 

To  the  decree  which  embodied  this  reply,  and  which  was 
framed  by  Aristides,  there  was  appended  an  instruction  to 
the  priests — most  probably  the  Eleusinian,  reputed  descen- 
dants of  Kerux  and  Eumolpus — to  denounce  curses  against 
whosoever  should  make  truce  with  the  Medes  or  desert  the 
Hellenic  confederacy. 

The  reply  to  the  Lacedaemonians  was  in  as  lofty  a  tone. 
It  was  excusable  in  the  enemy,  who  knew  no  better,  to  believe 
that  everything  was  purchaseable  by  money ;  but  Lacedae- 
monians were  justly  to  be  quarrelled  with  for  being  capable 
of  assuming,  at  sight  of  the  present  penury  of  the  Athenians, 
that  their  resolution  was  likely  to  be  decided  by  a  promise  of 
aid  towards  subsistence,  rather  than  by  their  sense  of  duty 

1  Herod,  viii.  137.  *  Ib.  viii.  143.  3  Ib.  vii.  172. 

£ 


50  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

towards  the  gods  of  their  profaned  sanctuaries,  and  by  their 
Hellenic  sympathies  of  common  blood  and  language,  of  sacred 
institutions  and  sacrifices,  of  conformity  in  moral  principles. 
'  Know  then  now,  if  it  has  been  unknown  to  you  hitherto, 
that  never,  so  long  as  one  Athenian  survives,  will  we  come  to 
terms  with  Xerxes.  We  acknowledge  your  good  intentions 
towards  us  with  respect  to  maintaining  our  families  in  the 
event  of  our  homes  being  destroyed  ;  and  so  far  your  kind- 
ness has  its  full  effect.  For  ourselves,  we  will  get  on  as  best 
we  may,  and  will  not  burden  you.  That  which  is  really 
urgent  now  is  that  you  should  send  forward  your  army  with 
the  utmost  promptitude.  The  barbarian,  upon  learning  the 
failure  of  his  envoy,  will  forthwith  be  upon  us.  Now  there- 
fore is  the  time,  before  he  enters  Attica,  to  advance  with  your 
aid,  and  oppose  him  in  Boeotia.'  This  the  Lacedaemonians 
engaged  to  do  with  a  readiness  that  proved  how  great  had 
been  their  anxiety. 

The  terms  of  these  Athenian  replies  might  well,  under 
the  circumstances,  seem  to  savour  of  extravagance,  did  we 
not  know  how  well  the  brave  words  were  acted  up  to 
when  the  storm  again  broke.  And  if  we  consider  what  was 
the  ensuing  history  of  liberated  Athens,  we  shall  recognise 
from  how  worthy  and  profound  a  self-consciousness  her  enun- 
ciations proceeded.  Attica  was  now  nourishing,  with  an 
abundant  population — a  population  that  contained  the  men 
who  had  conquered  at  Marathon  and  Salamis,  and  the  fathers 
of  those  who  were  to  realise  the  best  glories  of  the  age  of 
Pericles.  Past  achievements  and  future  resources  were  poten- 
tially concentrated  at  a  crisis  when  barbarism  was  threatening 
all  the  results  and  all  the  germs  of  the  noblest  development 
of  humanity  in  its  last  refuge  in  the  southernmost  peninsulas 
of  Greece.  A  single  generation  had  seen  the  glories  of  Ionia 
brought  to  a  bloody  and  stupefying  catastrophe,  and  the 
homes  of  the  best  Arts  and  the  best  Literature — both  how 
glorious  1 — which  Hellas  had  up  to  this  time  originated  on 


in.]       M A  EDO  N I  US  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.          51 

her  coasts  and  amidst  her  islands,  ravaged  by  a  vulgar, 
tawdry,  brutalised  military  power.  The  free  speech  of  free 
men  in  assembly  and  agora  was  proscribed,  and  for  the  inde- 
pendent bearings  of  equals,  who  only  admitted  reverence  for 
legal  authority,  for  honourable  age,  or  for  moral  excellence, 
was  substituted  companionship  in  degrading  prostrations 
before  the  satraps  of  a  king.  The  Greeks,  then,  were  not  re- 
sisting overwhelming  power  out  of  a  blind  obstinacy  which 
but  for  the  turn  of  a  chance  or  two  would  have  been  fatal, 
and  which  no  trust  in,  such  unhopeful  chance  could  make 
wise ;  they  were  not  the  unconscious  guardians  of  a  deposit 
whose  full  value  they  did  not  appreciate.  The  last  possibility 
of  saving  Hellas  was  in  their  hands,  and  it  was  no  mere 
egotism  on  their  part  that  made  them  regard  this  as  iden- 
tified with  the  saving  of  mankind,  and  therefore  to  be  vin- 
dicated at  any  cost,  at  any  risk, — vindicated  in  trust  on  the 
gods  even  when  no  possibility  of  success  was  discernible, — for 
was  not  death  under  any  circumstances  preferable  to  any  life 
that  could  continue  after  the  obliteration  from  the  world  of 
all  the  distinctive  excellences  of  the  life  Hellenic  ? 

The  tone  in  which  the  Athenians  had  responded  to  the 
envoys  from  Sparta  intimated  no  disposition  on  their  part  to 
withdraw  from  those  pretensions  to  influence  which  had  already 
excited  jealousy,  and  were  in  consequence  scarcely  calculated 
to  assist  the  endeavours  of  any  partisans  of  Athens  there  who 
might  be  anxious  to  hurry  forward  assistance.  The  positive 
terms,  again,  of  the  defiance  which  was  returned  to  Mardonius 
by  Alexander,  had  so  far  committed  them,  that  apprehension 
of  their  making  terms  was  in  a  great  degree  set  at  rest. 
Under  these  circumstances  a  Spartan  politician  might  be 
easily  reconciled  to  the  re-occupation  of  Attica,  where  after 
all  there  was  not  much  left  to  save  ;  the  pride  of  the  Athe- 
nians, as  he  would  think,  might  be  a  little  reduced  with  no 
general  disadvantage ;  their  fleet  would  remain  as  serviceable 
to  the  cause  as  ever,  and  secure  the  coasts  of  Peloponnesus, 

E  2 


52  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

while  no  more  favourable  conditions  could  be  desired  for  a 
conflict  with  the  Persian,  than  resistance  to  his  numbers  at 
the  narrow  neck  of  the  Isthmus,  which  was  now  fortified, 
and  the  entanglement  of  his  cavalry — his  most  formidable 
arm — among  the  passes  and  declivities  of  the  mountains 
to  the  south.  The  entrenchment  and  fortification  of  the 
Isthmus  had  been  commenced,  upon  the  news  of  the  death 
and  defeat  of  Leonidas,  immediately  after  the  Olympic  and 
Carneian  festivals  were  l  over.  Every  state  of  Peloponnesus 
then  lent  aid  to  the  work,  except  the  Argives  and  Achaeans, 
of  whom  Herodotus  says  that  they  '  kept  neutral,  or,  to 
speak  frankly,  by  their  very  neutrality  Medised.'  The  Sci- 
ronian  road,  which  was  always  difficult,  was  destroyed  or 
obstructed,  and  across  the  Isthmus  a  wall  was  completed  of 
stones,  bricks,  timber,  and  gabions,  combined  more  or  less 
effectually  and  regularly,  and  by  labour  that  went  on  without 
intermission  night  and  day.  Nothing  but  the  stratagem  of 
Themistocles,  by  which  he  succeeded  in  bringing  on  the  sea- 
fight  against  the  intentions  of  the  Peloponnesians,  had  pre- 
vented them,  when  they  heard  that  this  safeguard  was  so  near 
completion  and  the  Persian  land-force  advancing  upon  it, 
from  breaking  up  from  the  Saronic  gulf  and  leaving  Aegma, 
Megara,  and  the  refugees  at  Salamis  to  their  own  resources — 
or  rather  to  what  seemed  their  certain  fate.  After  the  naval 
victory,  and  still  more  after  the  retirement  of  the  Persians 
from  Athens,  the  work  had  slackened,  and  the  Spartan  regent 
Cleombrotus,  who  superintended  it,  found  sufficient  cause  for 
alarm  in  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  that  occurred  as  he  was  sacri- 
ficing, to  make  him  withdraw  home  with  his  forces  and  leave 
it  at  last  unfinished.  The  work  had  therefore  to  be  renewed 
in  the  spring,  and  was  still  in  progress  when  the  envoys  to 
Athens  were  labouring  to  countervail  the  proposals  of  Alex- 
ander, and  to  its  state  of  incompleteness  at  that  time  the 

1  Herod,  viii.  71. 


in.]       MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.         53 

historian  ascribes  the  great  anxiety  as  to  their  reception. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  suppose,  as  he  intimates,  that  even 
the  blindest  Spartan  could  think  that  the  defection  of 
Athens  to  Persia  would  be  of  little  consequence  if  once 
the  fortification  of  the  Isthmus  were  complete.  The  trans- 
fer of  naval  power  and  command  of  the  sea  would  still 
have  been  as  damaging  as  ever  to  the  defenders  of  the 
Peloponnesus;  if  they  were  less  eager  to  keep,  or  even  to 
make,  promises  of  sending  their  forces  forward  into  Attica, 
it  was  sufficient  that  the  promises  already  made  had  had 
their  desired  effect,  and  that  they  regarded  the  breach  of  the 
negotiations  with  Persia  as  irreparable.  Subsequent  events 
give  us  no  right  to  suppose  that  Sparta  was  neglecting  in  the 
meantime  the  equipment  of  her  own  military  power,  or  that  she 
was  less  resolved  than  Athens  to  resist  the  invader,  on  her 
own  part  and  on  her  own  ground  at  least,  to  the  last  man. 

The  report  which  the  Macedonian  carried  back  to  Thessaly 
had  its  anticipated  effect,  and  the  Persian  army  was  at  once 
set  in  motion  upon  Attica.  Mardonius  had  proposed  to  com- 
mence operations  in  the  spring,  but  it  was  1  about  the  middle 
of  July  when  he  reached  Athens,  ten  months  after  its  occu- 
pation by  Xerxes.  Considerable  time  had  been  consumed  in 
the  negotiations,  and  even  afterwards,  when  he  arrived  at 
Thebes,  the  temporising  policy  of  that  state  embarrassed  him 
more  than  ever.  The  leaders  of  the  oligarchical  party  there  in 
power  were  with  the  Persians  heart  and  soul,  and  prepared 
even  to  sacrifice  the  independence  of  their  country  in  order 
to  secure  themselves  in  that  irresponsible  supremacy  allowed 
by  Persia  to  faithful  tributary  princes, — whether  tyrants  or 
satraps, — though  they  knew  that  such  a  position,  obnoxious 
as  it  was  to  their  fellow-citizens,  was  still  more  so  to 
their  Athenian  and  Lacedaemonian  neighbours,  who  would 
therefore  be  always  ready  to  subvert  it.  The  sincerity 

1  01.  75.2  =  8.0.479. 


54  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  their  counsel  could  not  be  doubted,  and  their  voice 
was  still  to  corrupt  and  to  divide  the  Greeks,  who  when 
firmly  united  were  invincible ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  to  ad* 
Tanee  as  fir  as  Boeotia,  of  all  places  most  suited  for  the 
encampment  of  such  an  army,  and  there  await  a  victory 
-.:.:  .  .  :•.:•;>:  .,'•-.::  mfhaai  BfOB  ;,  kaftfla,  T:.-::r  HgB* 
meats  told  in  some  degree,  but  could  not  in  the  end  restrain 
the  Persian  from  moving  on  into  Attica.  Xerxes  was  still  at 
Sardis,  and  Mardonius  was  impatient  to  despatch  to  him  the 
news  that  he  was  again  in  possession  of  the  hated  Athens ; 
and  he  could  not  rest  until  a  system  of  pre-arranged  beacons 
had  transmitted,  from  island  to  island  across  the  Aegean, 
the  announcement  which  was  to  vindicate  the  assurance  of 
complete  success  which  he  had  given  to  the  Great 


is  little  doubt  that  Aeschylus  had  this  train  of 
in  mind,  and  purposely  recalled  it  to  the  Athenians, 
in  his  grand  description  of  such  a  flight  of  fire  in  the  '  Aga- 
memnon.' The  circumstances  of  time  and  space,  which  are 
reasonable  enough  in  this  historical  instance,  have  to  be 
strained  not  a  little  for  the  ten  years'  expectancy  of  Clytem- 
nestra,  and  the  provision  of  a  series  of  telegraphic  stations 
finai  Troy  by  the  line  of  Athos. 

Tne  Athenians  had  only  quitted  their  city  and  country 
at  the  last  moment,  trusting  that  in  spite  of  deferments 
and  delays  the  Peloponnesian  army  would  yet  arrive  accord- 
:':._•:  •:._-:. _"•  :-.•::.:-  Hal  -;  -.:-.  HfcVft  S>  SBOBd  n;:jrat:  n  :  Vut 

•  nemy  --..-  :•—:.-';.  ;.-  mm  m  Boaotia,  Hai  M  r.-.-re 
time  waa  to  be  lost ;  without  farther  delay  they  again  moved 
with  all  their  property  that  could  be  hastily 
to  S«l*tiiM  and  Troezene ;  and  in  pursuance 
of  a  uaeyliiaut  of  Aristidea,  Cimon  Xanthippus  and  Myro- 
nides,  affninnanifd  also  by  representatives  of  'Megara  and 
Flataea,  were  despatched  to  Sparta,  with  fresh  protest- 

1  Herod,  iz.  to. 


in.]       MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.        55 

ations  and  l  complaints.  That  Xanthippus,  who  was  now 
commander  of  the  fleet,  should  have  been  spared  for  this 
mission,  is  not  so  much  improbable  as  suggestive  of 
the  consideration  that  it  was  on  the  movements  and  des- 
tination of  this  fleet  that  the  interest  of  the  Spartans 
turned.  The  immediate  excuse  for  delay  given  to  the  com- 
missioners was  the  sacred  obligation  to  attend  to  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Hyacinthia ;  the  customs  of  the  nation,  rigid 
and  narrow,  and  adapted  only  for  a  limited  range  of  rela- 
tions, would  in  ordinary  cases  have  caused  this  to  be  received 
as  a  consistent  if  not  reasonable  apology.  But  the  Lace- 
daemonians, who  had  appealed,  so  glibly  for  them,  to  what 
was  just  and  becoming,  were  now  reminded  of  their  broken 
promises  ;  they  were  reproached  with  the  same  insincerity 
which  they  had  imputed  to  the  barbarian  bidder  for  alliance, 
in  having  only  promised  in  order  to  gain  time  for  com- 
pleting the  wall  at  the  Isthmus,  which  was  just  fitted  with 
its  battlements.  However,  let  them  now,  though  late,  send 
on  their  army,  and,  if  not  in  Boeotia,  fight  the  enemy  at 
least  in  the  Thriasian  plain,  otherwise  the  Athenians  on 
their  part  too  would  have  to  look  out  for  a  '  shelter '  (TIV& 
aAewpTjj.1) ;  an  enigmatical  allusion  to  the  Isthmian  wall, 
made  somewhat  in  their  own  laconic  way,  and  to  be  in- 
terpreted by  them  in  their  own  fashion. 

When  Mardonius  had  reached  Athens,  and  was  again 
within  a  march  or  two  of  the  difficult  Isthmus,  he  thought 
it  worth  while  to  make  one  more  attempt  to  detach  the 
Athenians.  We  cannot  wonder  that  the  persistency  pro- 
fessed by  them  should  appear  to  him  inconceivable ;  his 
agents  of  corruption  had  made  some  reports,  true  or  false, 
of  success, — another  and  that  a  third  year  of  fields  with- 
out a  harvest  was  in  prospect  for  them, — perhaps  the 
permanent  hostile  occupation  of  the  country, — and  lastly, 

1  Plut.  Aristid.  10. 


56  II I  STORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

the  support  which  their  selfish  allies  had  notoriously  pro- 
mised, and  which,  from  the  circumstances  of  their  return, 
they  had  certainly  counted  on,  had  failed  them,  and  failing1, 
had  left  them  without  confidence  thereafter.  Accordingly, 
he  ostentatiously  refrained  from  doing  further  damage  to 
the  country,  and  re-opened,  or  endeavoured  to  re-open,  nego- 
tiations with  Athens  by  despatching  to  the  Council  of  the 
Athenians  at  Salamis  a  new  envoy,  one  Murychides  of 
the  Hellespont.  This  was  news  that  of  itself  would  fly 
through  the  Peloponnesus  like  wildfire,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  Athenians  were  less  averse  now 
than  before  to  the  policy  of  holding  over  an  audience  or 
a  decision  until  the  contingencies  of  the  incident  had  told 
with  full  effect  at  Sparta.  For  ten  successive  days  the 
Athenian  envoys  there  had  been  put  off,  till  they  were 
wrought  to  the  height  of  impatience.  It  was  known  that 
the  fortification  in  the  meantime  was  being  strengthened, 
and  it  was  natural  to  apprehend  that  the  ephors  would,  at 
a  convenient  moment,  put  forward  some  pretext  for  break- 
ing off  their  engagement.  A  final  audience  was  therefore 
now  demanded  by  the  envoys  before  quitting  to  report  at 
home  the  failure  of  the  mission ;  they  were,  in  fact,  in 
possession  of  the  renewed  proposals  of  the  Persian  to  treat, 
and  were  prepared  to  declare,  as  a  final  argument,  that  further 
delay  must  lead  inevitably  to  their  acceptance,  and  thence 
to  joint  action  against  Sparta.  The  ephors  listened  calmly 
to  the  taunt  that  they  were  occupied  with  the  Hyacinthia, 
and  trifling,  not  to  say  amusing  themselves,  while  their  ally 
was  in  extremity,  and  then  announced,  with  the  by  no 
means  superfluous  guarantee  of  an  oath,  that  their  force 
was  already  despatched  against  the  '  strangers,'  and  must 
by  that  time — in  the  early  morning — be  already  well  forward 
beyond  the  frontiers.  The  news  of  the  reopened  negotiation 
— so  it  was  believed — had  wrought  this  change  over-night. 
If  a  certain  Chileus  of  Tegea,  who  was  credited  with  having 


in.]       MARDONIUS  IN  BOEOTIA  AND  ATTICA.         57 

had  most  influence  after  Themistocles  in  originally  uniting 
Hellas  against  the  l  Mede,  and  was,  of  all  foreigners,  in  the 
highest  credit  with  the  Lacedaemonians,  really  contributed  to 
their  decision  now,  it  must  have  been  by  the  expression  of 
his  belief  that  there  was  imminent  danger  of  the  negotiation 
resulting  in  an  alliance.  That  the  consequence  of  this  must 
be  '  to  throw  open  wide  portals  into  Peloponnesus,  however 
strongly  the  Isthmus  might  be  barred,'  the  ephors  did  not 
require  to  be  told. 

The  large  force  which  was  despatched  so  suddenly  must 
necessarily  have  been  under  preparation  for  emergencies  all 
along,  with  the  secrecy  that  was  an  established  maxim  of 
Spartan  policy ;  and  this  is  adverted  to  by  Pericles  later 
as  a  contrast  to  the  fearless  publicity  of  Athenian  politics. 
It  consisted  of  5,000  Spartiats,  each  attended  by  seven 
Helots  (5,000  +  35,000=40,000  men).  Cleombrotus  had 
died  soon  after  his  withdrawal  from  the  Isthmus,  and 
the  splendid  command  devolved,  with  most  important  his- 
torical consequences,  on  his  son  Pausanias,  as  regent  in 
the  place  of  his  cousin  Pleistarchus,  son  of  Leonidas,  who 
was  still  a  minor.  He  chose  as  his  own  second  in  com- 
mand, Euryanax  son  of  Dorieus,  of  the  same  royal  house. 
This  army — by  far  the  largest  that  we  ever  read  of  as 
sent  forth  by  Sparta — was  complemented  by  5,000  more 
heavy-armed  Lacedaemonians,  or  perioeci  (citizens  of  other 
Lacedaemonian  towns  than  Sparta),  and  with  them  started 
the  well-satisfied  envoys  from  Salamis,  in  all  haste  to  over- 
take the  first  columns.  An  untoward  but  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  reserve,  if  not  hesitation,  of  Sparta,  was  the 
lateness  in  the  field  of  some  of  the  other  Peloponnesian 
contingents. 

The  negotiations  at  Salamis,  which  there  was  now  no 
further  motive  or  even  means  for  protracting,  concluded 

1  Plut.  Them.  6. 


58  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

with  a  tragic  incident.  The  Hellespontian  Murychides  was 
dismissed  unharmed  after  delivering  his  message  to  the 
Council,  but  when  Lycides,  a  member  of  it,  whether  influenced 
or  not  by  Persian  gold,  proposed  that  the  offer  of  the 
Persian  should  be  submitted  to  the  popular  assembly,  indig- 
nation rose  instantly  to  its  height  among  his  assessors,  and 
out  of  doors  also  as  soon  as  the  occasion  was  known.  Lycides 
was  set  upon  and  stoned  to  death ;  the  tumult  presently 
roused  the  Athenian  women,  and  in  contagious  excitement 
they  rushed  to  his  dwelling  and  stoned  to  death  his  family 
also — both  wife  and  children. 

It  is  probable  that  this  fury  had  in  part  a  religious 
origin,  and  that  Lycides  had  brought  himself  and  his  family 
within  the  bitter  and  comprehensive  terms  of  the  curse 
that  had  been  solemnly  denounced  against  favourers  of  the 
Mede. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  PATRIOTIC  ARMY  IN   BOEOTIA. — THE  DEATH  OF   MASISTIUS. — 
PERSIAN    PREPARATIONS   TOR   FINAL   CONQUEST. 

B.O.  479,  September;  Ol.  75.  2. 

THE  Lacedaemonians  made  halt  at  the  Isthmus,  where 
they  were  joined  by  forces  from  other  states  of  Pelopon- 
nesus. Here  terms  and  resolutions  were  adopted  in  a  Hel- 
lenic congress,  as  well  for  the  concentration  of  troops  and 
supplies  from  various  quarters  both  without  and  within  the 
Isthmus,  as  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging — or,  let  us  rather 
say,  giving  expression  to — a  spirit  of  common  enthusiasm 
and  mutual  reliance.  The  usual  promises  were  made  to  the 
gods  in  the  event  and  expectation  of  victory;  their  assist- 
ance was  claimed  with  confidence  against  the  profaners  of 
their  desolated  sanctuaries — assistance  which  should  be  fitly 
acknowledged  and  recompensed,  though  the  ruins  were  to 
remain  in  ashes  for  all  time  as  memorials  of  barbarian 
sacrilege.  The  terms  of  an  oath  that  was  to  be  a  bond  of 
present  and  future  unity  ran  thus  : — '  I  will  not  regard 
life  as  of  any  value  in  comparison  with  liberty  ;  I  will  not 
desert  my  leaders  either  living  or  dead  ;  I  will  procure 
burial  for  whoever  of  the  allies  may  fall  in  battle ;  and 
when  the  barbarian  is  overcome  I  will  not  afterwards  sub- 
vert any  city  that  has  taken  part  in  the  struggle  against 
him/ 

The  last  clause  is  significant  of  the  apprehensions  that 
were  haunting  some  of  the  weaker  and  more  exposed  members 


60  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  the  Hellenic  community  in  presence  of  the  growing  am- 
bition of  stronger  powers.  The  Argives,  unconciliated  by 
this  guarantee,  held  entirely  aloof,  avowedly  on  the  ground 
that  their  population  had  been  too  seriously  reduced  by  their 
defeat  in  a  recent  conflict  with  Sparta  for  them  to  risk  the 
loss  of  more  blood  at  present,  especially  as  such  loss  would 
only  leave  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  protagonist  whom  they 
were  invited  to  strengthen ;  a  further  unavowed  motive  lay  in 
the  fact  that  the  strength  of  Sparta  was  the  main  obstacle  to 
certain  ambitious  projects  of  their  own.  That  the  Athenians 
had  very  distinct  views  of  encroachment  was  notorious,  and 
this  notoriety  had  been  ominously  emphasised  by  the  offer 
of  Mardonius  to  help  them  to  whatever  additional  territory 
they  wished  to  acquire.  Thus  the  threatened  states  of 
Mycenae  and  Aegina  had  forebodings  that  were  too  well 
justified  in  the  event,  and  naturally  claimed  and  clung  to 
the  guarantee  of  a  solemn  sanction,  the  concession  of  which 
at  this  crisis  was  probably  due  to  the  prevailing  spirit  of 
high-wrought  patriotic  enthusiasm,  as  much  as  to  any  sug- 
gestion of  policy. 

As  soon  as  the  omens  were  favourable,  and  the  requisite 
arrangements  and  musters  complete,  the  Peloponnesian  force 
was  at  last  really  set  in  motion  to  cross  the  Isthmus  and 
the  Megarid.  By  this  time  Mardonius  had  determined  to 
evacuate  Attica,  after  being  kept  in  suspense  by  the  Athe- 
nians till  the  very  last  l  moment.  A  swift  messenger  from 
the  Argives  now  brought  him  the  advice,  perhaps  not  much 
earlier  than  the  bootless  return  of  Murychides,  that  the 
Lacedaemonians  would  certainly  appear  forthwith  beyond 
the  Isthmus ;  so  that  any  wild  hopes  of  effective  obstruction 
that  they  might  have  encouraged  the  barbarian  to  expect 
on  their  part,  had  to  be  renounced,  and  it  remained  for  him 
to  take  his  own  measures. 

1  Herod,  iz.  13. 


iv.]           THE  PATRIOTIC  ARMY  IN  BOEOTIA.  61 

The  unfitness  of  Attica  for  the  action  and  evolutions  of 
cavalry,  and,  ravaged  as  it  had  been,  for  furnishing  supplies, 
as  well  as  the  difficulties  of  a  retreat  by  a  large  force,  in  case  of 
a  reverse,  through  the  northern  passes,  determined  him  to  with- 
draw at  once  to  the  more  open  plains  and  accessible  resources 
of  Boeotia  and  the  neighbourhood  of  the  strong  and  friendly 
city  of  Thebes.  His  last  days  in  Attica  were  spent  in  de- 
stroying whatever  could  be  destroyed  and  had  hitherto  been 
politicly  spared,  and  in  throwing  down,  so  far  as  time  allowed, 
whatever  still  remained  standing  of  the  walls  and  temples  of 
the  city.  The  Boeotarchs,  his  zealous  quartermasters,  fur- 
nished him  with  guides  for  the  eastern  route  by  Decelea  and 
Sphendale,  across  Parnes  to  Tanagra — a  considerable  circuit, 
but  affording  more  easy  passes,  and  avoiding  any  risk  of 
molestation  from  the  Isthmus  to  which  the  western  might  be 
exposed.  He  was  already  on  the  road,  when  a  report  that  a 
body  of  not  more  than  1000  Lacedaemonians  had  advanced 
to  Megara  tempted  him  to  check  his  march  and  make  an 
attempt  to  snatch  a  victory,  however  trifling,  before  he  retired. 
Turning  back  his  army,  he  despatched  a  cavalry  force  in 
advance,  which  rapidly  overran  the  Megarid  without  encoun- 
tering opposition;  and  this  was  the  furthest  point  of  Europe 
towards  the  setting-sun  that  a  Persian  invader  ever  reached. 
One  of  his  detachments,  however,  became  entangled  among 
the  mountains  and  was  cut  xoff;  and  upon  this  check,  and 
receipt  of  more  formidable  accounts  of  the  muster  at  the 
Isthmus,  he  turned  once  more,  and  finally  resumed  the  route 
to  Decelea. 

The  dedication  of  a  bronze  statue  to  Artemis  Soteira  was 
in  later  days  ascribed  by  the  Megarians  to  the  occasion  of 
this  incident,  which,  as  it  came  to  be  related,  wanted  not 
mythic  embellishment.  It  was,  they  said,  by  device  of 
Artemis  that  night  overtook  the  retiring  Persians,  who  first 

1  Paus.  i.  40.  §  2. 


62  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

lost  their  way  among  the  mountains,  and  then,  when  they 
discharged  arrows  to  test  the  proximity  of  an  enemy,  were  so 
far  beguiled  by  the  echoes  of  the  rock,  which  they  mistook 
for  groans,  that  they  exhausted  their  quivers  and  fell  an  easy 
prey  at  daybreak  to  the  Megarian  hoplites. 

Mardonius  remained  at  Tanagra  only  a  night,  and  the  next 
day  turned  westward  and  reached  Scolus  on  Theban  territory, 
about  forty  stadia — four  miles  and  a  half — down  the  Asopus 
on  the  road  between  Thebes  and  'Plataea.  The  Lacedae- 
monians on  their  part  advanced  to  the  Thriasian  plain  as  far 
as  Eleusis,  and  then  made  halt.  The  sacrifices  were  again  to 
be  scanned  for  a  suggestion  to  proceed ;  and,  as  at  the 
Isthmus  they  had  waited  for  the  other  Peloponnesians,  who 
'  affected  the  better  things/  to  make  an  effort,  in  spite  of 
the  shortness  of  the  notice,  not  to  be  behindhand  in  the 
field,  so  here  also  time  was  to  be  allowed  for  further  pre- 
paration, and  for  a  junction  with  an  important  reinforce- 
ment of  the  Athenians,  who  were  to  cross  from  Salamis, 
under  command  of  Aristides,  son  of  Lysimachus,  elected 
2autocrator,  and  thus  independent  of  the  association  of  col- 
leagues which  had  hampered  Miltiades.  Then  at  last  the 
combined  army  started  direct  for  Boeotia.  It  crossed 
Mount  Cithaeron  by  the  western  passes  and  emerged  above 
Erythrae.  The  Persian  host  was  full  in  view,  encamped 
on  the  plain  between  the  line  of  the  Asopus,  here  flowing 
eastward  and  parallel  to  the  main  ridge  of  Cithaeron, 
and  Erythrae  and  Hysiae  on  the  higher  ground  opposite 
to  the  verge  of  the  Plataean  territory.  In  the  rear  of  this 
position  and  beyond  the  Asopus  a  vast  enclosure  had  been 
formed  and  strengthened  by  a  timber  palisade,  for  which 
all  trees  within  reach  were  felled  indiscriminately — necessity, 
says  Herodotus,  compelling  disregard  of  the  friendliness  of 
the  country.  The  enclosure,  though  over  a  mile  square  (ten 

1  Paus.  ix.  4.  §  3.  •  Plut.  Arittid.  n. 


iv.]  THE  PATRIOTIC  ARMY  IN  BOEOTIA.  63 

stadia),  was  not  intended  for  occupation  by  the  army  unless 
in  the  event  of  aught  falling  out  untowardly  in  the  expected 
battle ;  in  the  meantime  it  was  a  repository  of  the  vast  neces- 
sary stores,  as  well  as  of  the  general  baggage  and  appliances 
that  were  always  required  by  Persian  luxury  even  in  the 
midst  of  a  campaign. 

In  this  position  the  Persian  army  received  a  lagging  re- 
inforcement of  1000  Phocian  hoplites,  under  command  of 
Harmocydes,  a  citizen  of  marked  reputation.  The  Medism 
of  the  Phocians  was  most  reluctant,  but  less  so,  Herodotus 
thought,  from  Hellenic  sympathy  than  out  of  hatred  to  the 
Thessalians ;  and  it  was  only  under  compulsion  of  their  neigh- 
bourhood to  Thessaly  and  Thebes  that  this  dilatory  aid  was 
rendered  at  all.  They  had  not  joined  early  enough  to  take 
part  in  the  invasion  of  Attica,  and  were  the  more  mistrusted 
from  the  direct  hostility  of  a  part  of  their  population.  These 
had  taken  refuge  in  considerable  numbers  on  Mount  Par- 
nassus, and  found  a  place  of  security  for  themselves  and  their 
property  at  Tithora,  a  steeply-scarped  rocky,  position  from 
whence  they  had  seriously  harassed  the  Persians  and  their 
1  confederates. 

Mardonius  sent  orders  to  the  new  arrival  to  take  up  a 
position  on  the  open  plain,  and  then  a  scene  ensued  of  which 
Herodotus  did  not  pretend  to  know  the  exact  explanation. 
A  sudden  suspicion — a  <£?/JU,TJ  or  unaccountable  sympathetic 
impression — ran  through  all  the  Greek  allies,  including  the 
Phocians  themselves,  that  mischief  was  intended  towards  them. 
Harmocydes  apprehended  the  ill  offices  of  the  Thessalians  as 
much  as  the  anger  of  the  Persian,  and  called  on  his  company 
to  show  their  mettle  by  selling  their  lives  dearly.  His  appeal 
was  scarcely  made  when  a  cloud  of  horsemen  were  upon  them, 
charged  close  up  to  them,  now  wheeled  round  and  now  sur- 
rounded them,  ever  with  threatening  weapons,  though  only 

1  Herod,  viii.  32  ;  Plut.  Vit.  Sullae,  14  ;  Paus.  x.  32. 


64  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

one  or  two  darts  may  have  been,  as  if  accidentally,  discharged. 
The  intention  probably  was  not  so  much  to  provoke  attack 
as  to  cause  alarm,  and  then,  when  the  expected  dispersion  and 
flight  began,  to  slaughter  the  fugitives.  The  Phocians  how- 
ever coolly  stood  to  their  arms,  closed  their  ranks  to  the 
utmost,  and  faced  to  every  threatened  attack  ;  and  Mardonius 
was  fain  to  turn  the  matter  off  with  a  compliment  to  the 
courage  which  he  said  had  been  impugned,  but  which,  so 
tested,  commanded  his  absolute  confidence. 

It  was  during  these  days  that  an  incident  occurred  which, 
as  recorded  by  Herodotus,  has  all  the  interest  of  an  autobio- 
graphical notice :  it  brings  home  to  us  how  near  he  himself 
was  in  time  to  the  events  his  history  had  reached,  and  to 
authentic  information  respecting  them ;  and  by  its  implica- 
tions adds  great  value  to  his  general  testimony  as  to  the 
present  crisis  of  the  Persian  expedition.  A  magnificent 
entertainment  was  provided  in  Thebes  for  the  Persians  and 
their  Hellenic  allies  by  Attaginus  son  of  Phrynou,  who 
together  with  Timegenidas  was  in  control  of  the  whole  power 
and  policy  of  the  state.  Mardonius  and  fifty  of  the  most 
distinguished  Persians  were  invited  to  meet  fifty  Thebans 
at  dinner,  where  the  two  nations  were  not  only  arranged 
alternately  but  in  pairs — a  Theban  and  a  Persian  sharing 
a  single  couch  between  them.  The  dinner  over,  wine 
circulated  according  to  universal  Greek  rather  than  earlier 
Persian  manners ;  and  it  was  then  that  a  Persian  who  con- 
versed in  Greek  opened  his  mind  to  the  guest  with  whom 
he  was  associated.  This  was  a  certain  Thersander,  a  man  of 
much  note  at  Orchomenus,  and  Herodotus  received  the  par- 
ticulars from  Thersander  himself,  who  assured  him  that  he 
had  given  the  same  account  to  others  at  the  time,  before 
the  catastrophe  that  was  so  painfully  apprehended  arrived. 
Having  assured  himself  by  an  enquiry  that  his  companion 
was  not  an  actual  Theban,  and  possibly  of  something  more, 
'  With  you,  now,'  said  the  Persian,  '  as  my  partner  at  meat 


iv.]  THE  PATRIOTIC  ARMY  IN  BOEOTIA.  65 

and  in  libation,  I  would  fain  leave  remembrance  of  what  is 
my  conviction;  that  you  may  be  forewarned  on  your  own 
account,  and  take  counsel  for  the  best.  You  see  these  Persians 
feasting  here ;  you  saw  the  army  that  we  left  encamped  down 
by  the  river ;  let  a  short  time  have  gone  by  and  of  all  these 
men  you  will  behold  but  some  few  survivors.'  The  words  were 
spoken  with  the  sincerity  attested  by  abundant  tears.  The 
Greek  in  surprise  suggested  (and  we  must  assume  that  some 
grounds  were  indicated  for  his  conviction)  that  surely  in  this 
case  it  was  incumbent  to  communicate  with  Mardonius  and 
those  of  the  Persians  who  were  in  credit  with  him.  '  Stranger,' 
was  the  reply,  '  what  God  has  determined  shall  be,  man  is 
incompetent  to  avert ;  for  none  will  give  attention  to  any, 
however  credible  their  statements.  Of  all  that  I  tell  you 
abundance  of  our  Persians  are  conscious ;  but  we  go  on 
fettered  by  necessity;  and  the  bitterest  pang  of  all  it  is  for 
man  to  see  and  know  what  circumstances  demand  and  yet 
to  be  destitute  of  power.' 

These  are  words  of  which  the  full  import  will  only  be 
recognised  by  one  who  has  been  near  enough  to  head-quarters 
to  see  interests  of  great  importance  with  which  his  own  are 
inextricably  involved,  going  to  rack  and  ruin  through  the 
obstinate  self-conceit  and  blind  jealousy  of  managers  alike 
unassailable  by  their  position  and  insensible  to  truth  whether 
bluntly  demonstrated,  or  adroitly  suggested.  Whether  the 
dejected  Persian  was  an  adherent  of  the  unhopeful  and  dis- 
contented Artabazus,  or  dreaded  how  Mardonius  might 
be  hampered  by  his  half-hearted  support,  it  matters  little ; 
more  probably  he  had  discovered  that  the  organisation 
and  order  requisite  for  so  vast  an  army  were  wanting, 
and  that  the  supreme  direction  lay  where  decisive  action 
might  be  precipitated  at  any  moment  by  the  worst 
advisers,  the  excitement  of  a  moment,  blind  refusal  to 
modify  a  judgment  once  announced,  or  to  accept  inform- 
ation, much  less  a  conclusion,  from  a  subordinate  though 

F 


66  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

sagacious  associate.  As  we  read  the  account  of  the  final 
conflict,  the  elements  of  danger  seem  so  rife  on  the  other 
side  within  the  Hellenic  councils,  that  we  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive the  case  to  have  been  worse  in  the  Persian.  The  dif- 
ference lay  in  the  fact  that  there  was  a  germ  of  healthy 
vigour  underneath  the  dissensions  and  heart-burnings  of  the 
Greeks,  which  counteracted  great  mischiefs,  and  assured  a 
survival  of  their  cause  through  embarrassments  that  would  be 
fatal  to  their  enemies. 

The  Persian  commander  had  made  no  attempt  to  dispute 
or  harass  the  passage  of  the  mountains  ;  his  expectation  and 
hope  was,  to  be  attacked,  or  to  have  opportunity  of  attacking, 
in  the  position  he  had  taken  up  in  the  plain,  where  his  ex- 
cellent cavalry,  Persian  and  Thessalian — an  arm  of  which  the 
Greeks  were  entirely  destitute — would  operate  with  most 
effect ;  the  rugged  and  contracted  passes  being  trusted  to  com- 
plete the  confusion  when  the  troops  were  flying  in  disorder. 
As  the  Greek  forces  emerged  from  the  passes  and  took  up 
their  position  along  the  higher  slopes  of  Cithaeron,  in  the 
direction  of  Erythrae,  eastward  of  the  roads  that  ran  direct 
to  Thebes,  they  were  out  of  reach  of  the  enemy's  cavalry. 
But  there  was  scarcity  of  water  from  the  first,  and  afterwards, 
as  the  rendezvous  was  completed,  they  were  so  far  cramped 
for  room,  from  the  proximity  of  the  enemy,  that  some  detach- 
ments— the  Megarians  especially — had  to  occupy  ground  that 
was  considerably  exposed.  Upon  the  Megarians  accordingly 
Mardonius,  after  waiting  in  vain  for  the  descent  of  the  general 
army,  gave  orders  for  an  attack  by  the  entire  division  of 
cavalry,  of  which  a  large  proportion  at  least  were  bowmen, 
under  the  command  cf  Masistius,  one  of  the  most  important 
of  the  Persians.  This  was  executed  by  the  wheeling  of  succes- 
sive squadrons  on  the  same  system  that  was  to  be  employed 
long  after,  with  historic  results,  on  the  plains  of  Parthia ; 
and  had  so  much  effect,  that  the  Megarians,  while  still  main- 
taining their  ground  courageously,  sent  word  to  the  generals 


iv.]  THE  DEATH  OF  MASISTIUS.  67 

that  unless  relieved  they  must  break  line  and  retire.  An 
epigram  collected  among-  those  of  Simonides  celebrates  this 
resistance  without  the  qualification.  That  the  authority  of 
the  general-in-chief  of  the  allied  Greeks  was  limited,  appears 
from  the  fact  that  Pausanias  left  it  *to  their  option  who 
among  them  should  undertake  this  duty ;  and  Herodotus 
puts  it  unreservedly  to  the  credit  of  the  Athenians  that  they 
were  the  first  to  volunteer  to  the  front.  But  the  Athenians 
had  in  fact  profited  by  their  experience  at  Marathon  to 
adjust  their  equipments  in  some  degree  to  the  special  re- 
quirements of  conflict  with  the  Median  archers.  At  Mara- 
thon they  had  been  forced  to  rush  to  the  attack — heavy- 
armed  as  they  were — with  no  protection  from  skirmishers, 
either  bowmen  or  cavalry,  whereas  we  now  find  them  provided 
with  a  force  of  bowmen  whose  special  duty  was  to  co-operate 
with  hoplites ;  l  Ctesias  even  states  that  they  had  been  pro- 
cured by  Aristides  and  Themistocles  from  Crete.  In  the 
present  case  they  accompanied  three  hundred  select  hoplites 
under  the  command  of  Olympiodorus,  son  of  Lampon.  The 
contest  still  continued  for  some  time  after  their  arrival,  the 
Persian  horsemen  constantly  careering  past,  and  as  they  dis- 
charged their  weapons  adding  taunts  of  womanishness,  to 
provoke,  if  possible,  an  advance.  At  last,  in  the  return 
of  one  charge,  the  Nisaean  horse  of  Masistius  was  pierced 
in  the  flank  by  a  happy  arrow,  and  rearing  in  frantic  pain, 
shook  off  its  splendidly-accoutred  rider.  The  Athenians  were 
upon  him  instantly,  the  horse,  golden-bitted  and  superbly 
caparisoned,  was  captured,  and  Masistius  himself,  though 
saved  for  a  time  by  the  accurate  completeness  of  his  armour — 
a  mailed  shirt  of  golden  scales  hid  below  his  purple  vest — 
which  disappointed  the  strokes  of  his  assailants,  was  at 
length  killed  as  he  lay  prostrate,  by  a  weapon  which 
pierced  him  through  his  eye.  In  the  speed  and  confusion 
of  the  wheeling  horsemen  this  catastrophe  was  unobserved 

1  ap.  Phot. 
F   3 


68  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

until  the  troop,  drawing  up  at  a  distance  to  re-form, 
found  themselves  without  a  leader.  As  soon  as  the  loss  was 
known  the  word  was  given,  and  the  entire  force  at  once 
came  on,  no  longer  in  detachments  but  in  mass,  resolved  at 
least  to  rescue  the  body. 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Athenians,  as  they  saw  the 
coming  shock,  to  send  for  assistance,  and,  till  it  arrived,  they 
had  to  sustain,  and  did  sustain,  a  desperate  conflict.  Though 
compelled  to  retire  from  the  dead  body,  they  did  not  allow 
it  to  be  secured  by  the  enemy,  before  the  arrival  of  the  rein- 
forcements obliged  the  latter  to  retire  in  their  turn  and  leave 
it  with  more  of  their  numbers  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks.  At 
the  distance  of  two  stadia  they  again  drew  up,  but  were  soon 
seen,  after  a  short  consultation,  returning  to  their  camp. 

The  elation  of  the  Greeks  at  this  success  was  boundless. 
It  was  much  to  have  sustained  unflinchingly  the  detached 
onsets  of  this  redoubted  cavalry,  but  how  much  more  to  have 
repulsed  it  in  a  body !  The  enthusiasm  rose  to  its  height 
when  the  corpse  of  Masistius  was  placed  upon  a  cart  and 
carried  through  the  army,  where  all  as  it  passed  quitted 
their  ranks  to  behold  it,  and  gazed  at  it  with  the  peculiar 
gratification  of  Greeks.  It  was  well  worth  seeing,  says 
Herodotus,  so  large  it  was  and  so  beautiful.  And  soon 
a  clamour  from  the  Persian  camps  revealed  how  severe  a 
blow  was  admitted  in  the  death  of  Masistius,  a  man  second 
only  to  Mardonius  in  the  estimation  of  the  Persians  them- 
selves as  well  as  of  the  Great  King.  The  barbarians,  in  a 
frenzy  of  grief,  were  cutting  off  not  only  their  own  hair 
but  even  that  of  horses  and  beasts  of  burden,  while  '  the 
echo  of  their  lamentations  ' — faintly  represented  to  us  by 
the  prolonged  waitings  of  the  Persians  of  Aeschylus — '  filled 
all  l  Boeotia.'  The  cries  as  they  were  re-echoed  from  the 
cliffs  of  Cithaeron  confirmed  the  courage  and  enhanced  the 
confidence  of  the  defenders  of  their  native  land. 
1  Herod,  ix.  34. 


iv.]  THE  DEATH  OF  MASISTIUS.  69 

The  elation  of  their  own  army  and  the  dismay  of  the  enemy 
now  enabled  the  Greek  generals  to  effect  a  change  of  position, 
which  had  indeed  become  urgent ;  and  a  descent  of  their 
entire  force  was  at  once  made  without  molestation  from  the 
Erythraean  to  the  Plataic  district,  the  lower  level  of  which 
afforded  freer  space  for  encamping,  and  access  to  water.  The 
line  of  march  inclined  to  the  north-west,  across  the  spurs  of 
Cithaeron,  past  Hysiae ;  and  the  army,  in  its  divisions  of 
tribes  or  nations,  ultimately  occupied  a  line  of  intermixed 
plain  and  low  hillocks,  extending — as  is  distinctly  implied 
in  the  phrase  of  1  Herodotus — from  another  branch  of  the 
river  on  the  west  to  a  copious  fountain  called  Gargaphia, 
eastward. 

The  formal  order  of  array  was  not  assumed  without  inter- 
ruption from  a  tribal  claim  to  precedence,  which  was  asserted 
and  set  aside  in  a  manner  premonitory  of  the  dying  out  of 
some  other  more  important  traditions.  The  right  wing  in  the 
Greek  army  was  the  post  of  honour — possibly  from  mere  sym- 
bolical dignity  as  right,  or  because,  as  exposing  the  unshielded 
side  of  the  hoplites  to  a  flank  attack,  it  was  a  post  of  more 
peculiar  danger  than  the  left  and  otherwise  equally  uncovered 
extremity.  This  was  conceded  as  a  matter  of  course  to  the 
Lacedaemonians,  but  the  Tegeans  contested  the  left  wing  with 
the  Athenians,  to  whom  it  had  been  assigned.  With  a  certain 
Arcadian  hebetude  they  pleaded  before  the  Lacedaemonians  a 
title  based  on  the  slaying  of  Hyllus,  a  Heracleid  ancestor  of 
their  kings  in  mythical  times,  and  many  not  unsuccessful  con- 
tests against  the  present  arbiters  later  on.  The  Athenians 
replied  that  they  had  come  out  to  fight  and  not  to  argue  ; 
but  for  themselves,  if  antiquity  is  to  be  considered,  they  might 
say  that  if  the  Tegeans  killed  Heracleids,  their  ancestors  took 
arms  victoriously  in  defence  of  them,  besides  other  exploits 
which  they  mentioned,  but  did  not  insist  on.  '  Courage  or 
cowardice  in  one  age  is  no  warrant  for  the  next ;  what  is 

1  Herod,  ix.  31. 


70  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

more  to  the  purpose  in  approving  our  title,  apart  from  these 
later  achievements,  is  our  single-handed  victory  at  Marathon 
against  this  same  enemy.  No  difficulty  however  shall  arise 
on  our  part  at  such  a  time  ;  place  us  where  you  please, 
Lacedaemonians,  and  opposed  to  whomsoever ;  in  any  post 
we  shall  do  our  very  best ;  give  the  command  and  you  will 
be  at  once  obeyed.'  A  general  shout  from  the  Lacedae- 
monian ranks  in  favour  of  the  Athenians — a  transference  to 
camp  of  the  vote  by  acclamation  customary  at  Sparta — was 
accepted  as  a  decision,  and  so  this  question  was  decided  in 
accordance  with  the  first  intentions  of  Pausanias.  In  com- 
pleting his  general  dispositions,  he  placed  the  Lacedaemonian 
force  which  was  under  his  direct  command  at  the  extreme 
right,  and  consoled  the  Tegeans  by  giving  them  the  position 
immediately  next  in  succession. 

The   original   order  of  array  of  heavy-  and   light-armed 
together  then  follows  according  to  this  enumeration  : — 


Hoplites. 

Lacedaemonians  10,000,  of  whom  5,000  were  Spartiats,  each  5,000 

attended  by  7  helots 5,000 

Total  from  Sparta   10,000 

Tegeans     1,500 

Corinthians  5,000,   with   whom,   by  special   permission  of 
Pausanias,  were  300  Potidaeans  from  their  colony  at 

Pallene 5,300 

Arcadians  of  Orchomenus,  600  ;  Sicyonians,  3,000 3,6oo 

Epidaurians,  800  ;  Troezenians,  1,000 1,800 

Lepreans,  200  ;  Mycenians  and  Tirynthians,  400 600 

Phliasians,  1,000  ;  Hermionians,  300    1,300 

Total  Peloponnesians 24,100 

From  Euboea — Eretrians  and  Styrians,  600 ;    Chalcidians, 

400    1,000 

Ambracians,  500  ;  Leucadians  and  Anactorians,  800 1,300 

Paliana  from  Cephallene,  200;  Aeginetans,  500     700 

Megaraeans 3,000 

Plataeans 600 

Athenians 8,000 

Totals 38,700 


Light- 
armed. 
5,000 
35,000 

40,000 
1,500 


5-300 
3-6oo 
i, 800 
600 
1,300 

54,100 


1,000 
1,300 

700 
3,ooo 

600 
8,000 

68,700 


iv.]  PERSIANS  PREPARE  FOR  FINAL  CONQUEST.    71 

This  catalogue  of  names  is  verified  by  that  copied  by  Pau- 
sanias  the  traveller  from  the  base  of  a  dedicated  statue  at 
Olympia,  which  contains  them  all  except  the  l  Palians.  The 
names  of  islands  of  the  group  of  Cyclades — Ceos,  Melos, 
Tenos,  Naxos,  Cythnos — included  at  Olympia  may  have  been 
omitted  in  the  history  solely  from  the  trifling  numbers  they 
could  contribute.  The  omission,  in  the  inscription,  of  Andros 
and  Paros,  the  only  other  important  islands  of  the  group, 
agrees  with  the  pressure  applied  to  them  in  the  history, 
for  Medism.  Of  the  force  of  hoplites,  in  full  defensive 
armour,  the  best — the  Athenians  and  Plataeans  8,600,  and 
Lacedaemonians  10,000 — do  not  together  amount  to  a  full 
half,  but  their  entire  forces,  heavy  and  light,  including 
the  vast  proportion  of  helots,  make  up  more  than  half  the 
army. 

The  entire  array  as  given  by  Herodotus  comprised  of 
heavy-armed  men,  38,700,  to  whom  he  adds  the  light-armed, 
69,500,  made  up  of  35,000  helots  (7  to  each  Spartiat), 
and  34,500  for  the  rest  of  the  Lacedaemonians  and  Greeks 
('  about  one  to  each  man ')  ;  giving  a  total  number  of  com- 
batants 108,200. 

The  light-armed,  as  given  in  his  grand  total,  are  800  in 
excess  of  the  reckoning  of  one  to  each  hoplite,  but  the  differ- 
ence— as  indeed  the  expression  of  the  historian — only  in- 
dicates a  variation  from  a  general  proportion,  which  must 
have  occurred  in  one  direction  or  the  other.  A  muster  of 
the  round  number  of  110,000  is  completed  by  reckoning  in 
i, 800  Thespian  refugees  from  their  burnt  city,  who  were 
'  without  arms,'  that  is,  equipped  irregularly. 

As  soon  as  the  ceremonial  mourning  for  the  death  of 
Masistius  was  concluded,  Mardonius  moved  his  forces  west- 
ward, so  as  to  confront  the  Greeks  in  their  new  position. 
A  branch  of  the  Asopus  now  separated  the  two  armies; 
the  stream  at  this  season — late  in  summer — must  have  been 
1  Pausanias,  ¥.23. 


72  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

fordable  all  along  its  course,  as  it  is  not  taken  into  consider- 
ation as  a  serious  military  obstacle  ;  even  in  spring  it  could 
be  easily  crossed  between  Plataea  and  Thebes,  unless  when 
swollen  by  sudden  heavy  2rain.  His  own  forces,  like  those 
of  the  Greeks,  were  now  disposed  with  reference  to  an  im- 
pending conflict.  The  Persians,  whom  he  accounted  his  best 
soldiers,  he  opposed  to  the  Greek  left  wing,  and  the  best  of 
them  again,  by  instruction  of  the  Thebans,  to  the  Lacedae- 
monians ;  the  others  to  the  Tegeans,  whose  array  they  were 
numerous  enough  to  overlap,  though  drawn  up  in  deep  ranks. 
Assuming  that  the  helots  and  light-armed  soldiers  throughout 
were  in  proximity  to  their  respective  nations,  the  Persians  would 
be  opposed  to  50,000  Lacedaemonians  and  3,000  Tegeans, 
or  little  under  one  half  the  numerical  Greek  force,  though 
to  less  than  a  third  of  the  heavy-armed.  The  Medes  were 
next,  opposed  to  17,800  Corinthians,  Arcadians,  and  Sicyon- 
ians ;  the  Bactrians  were  opposed  to  Epidaurians,  Troezenians, 
Lepreans,  Tirynthians,  Mycenians,  and  Phliasians ;  the  Indians 
to  the  Hermionians,  who  from  their  Dryopian  relationship 
were  ranged,  not  with  their  neighbours  of  Troezene,  but  with 
Eretrians,  Styrians,  and  Chalcidians  from  Euboea ;  the  Sakae 
opposed  the  Ambracians,  Anactorians,  Leucadians,  Palians, 
and  Aeginetans.  The  Bactrians,  Indians,  and  Sakae — for  the 
most  part  a  miserably  armed  and  undisciplined  mob — had  thus 
to  match  1 3,400  men.  Lastly,  the  strong  force  and  approved 
quality  of  the  Athenians,  together  with  the  Plataeans  and  Me- 
garaeans — 23,000  of  all  arms — were  to  be  encountered  by  the 
Medising  Greeks,  the  Boeotians,  Locrians,  Melians,  Thessa- 
lians,  and  neighbouring  tribes,  and  the  1000  Phocians;  and 
here  also  were  the  Macedonians.  Other  troops,  whose  places 
are  not  noted,  were  Phrygians,  Thracians,  Mysians,  Paeonians 
and  others,  besides  the  Aethiopians  and  Egyptians,  who  had 
been  withdrawn  from  the  fleet.  The  total  barbarian  forces  of 
Marlonius,  at  least  at  their  original  2  muster,  are  numbered 

1  Thucyd.  ii.  1-5.  '  Herod,  ix.  32  ;  cf.  viii.  113. 


iv.]  PERSIANS  PREPARE  FOR  FINAL  CONQUEST.    73 

at  300,000  horse  and  foot.  Of  his  Hellenic  allies  the  number 
had  never  been  taken,  and  was  not  known — at  a  guess  it 
might  be  50,000,  exclusive  of  horsemen  ;  and  for  these  figures 
Herodotus  is  responsible. 

The  most  formidable  superiority  of  the  Persians  however 
lay  not  in  their  numbers  at  large,  but  in  the  numbers  and 
excellence  of  their  cavalry,  both  of  their  zealous  Thessalian 
supporters  and  of  the  Sakae  and  their  own  mounted  bowmen 
— (hippotoxatae] — in  many  respects  the  equivalents  of  modern 
field-artillery.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  armoured  as  opposed  to  unarmoured  men,  with 
that  corresponding  superiority  in  offensive  weapons  which 
Aristagoras  had  urged  on  Cleomenes  as  an  encouragement 
to  the  Greeks  to  strike  for  the  conquest  of  Susa  l  itself, — 
in  terms  as  ominously  significant  as  the  conviction  put  into 
the  mouth  of  Xerxes,  that  the  quarrel  between  Greece  and 
Persia  was  to  the  death,  and  would  only  be  concluded  by 
the  entire  subjugation  of  Greece  by  Persia  or  of  the  Persian 
empire  by  2  Greece.  The  short  spear  and  bow  of  the 
Persian  foot-soldier  prevented  his  carrying  a  shield  of  any 
strength  and  magnitude,  and  the  want  of  such  defence  was 
poorly  supplied  by  gerrha,  a  kind  of  wicker  hurdles  covered 
with  hides,  and  fixed  into  the  ground  by  spikes  as  a  fence 
before  the  line.  With  no  body  armour  whatever,  nor 
effective  helmet,  he  was  but  a  poor  match  at  close  quarters 
for  the  Greek,  of  sedulously  strengthened  and  exercised 
frame,  protected  yet  not  encumbered  by  the  shield  and 
panoply  of  the  hoplite,  and  still  equal  to  wielding  a 
stouter  and  longer  spear.  Any  advantage  that  the  Persian 
might  hope  for  and  even  be  encouraged  in  by  his  Theban 
allies,  from  the  unity  of  a  despotic  command  as  opposed  to 
a  confederacy  of  commanders,  mutually  and  not  without 
reason  jealous  and  distrustful  of  each  other,  was  just 
now  materially  counteracted  by  the  withdrawal  of  Xerxes, 

1  Herod,  v.  49.  a  Ib.  vii.  1 1. 


74  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

and  is  at  best  always  dependent  on  the  co-existence  with 
irresponsible  power  of  military  genius,  or  at  least  of  a 
spirit  that  would  repudiate  reliance  on  the  lash  as  the 
leading  motive  of  concerted  l  energy. 

As  regards  the  Lacedaemonians,  it  was  most  true,  as  De- 
maratus  warned  2  Xerxes,  that  freemen  as  they  were,  in  one 
sense  they  were  not  free,  for  Law  (6  vo'/xos)  was  to  them  a  master 
who  exacted  obedience  more  implicit  than  was  ever  rendered 
to  the  Great  King  himself;  obedient  to  this  master  in  all  re- 
spects, they  were  especially  so  in  this,  that  they  were  under 
obligation  when  battle  once  was  joined  never  to  fly  before 
any  number  of  enemies,  but  standing  their  ground  either  to 
prevail  or  perish.  For  the  rest,  a  still  nobler  self-conscious- 
ness was  animating  the  Athenians, — the  rivals  of  the  Lace- 
daemonians by  their  achievements  at  Marathon,  and  especially 
at  Salamis.  With  them  individual  genius  was  of  more  avail 
than  rigour  of  technical  discipline ;  and  even  among  the 
minor  states  a  spirit  of  enthusiastic  emulation  in  patriotism 
went  far  to  obliterate  for  the  time  the  jealousies  that  were 
being  nobly  set  aside  by  their  leaders. 

The  two  armies  were  now  within  easier  reach  of  each  other, 
and  yet  the  collision  was  delayed.  The  Greeks  were  still 
receiving  reinforcements  and  supplies,  and  had  taken  up 
ground  where  they  were  content  to  await  an  attack,  but 
which  they  could  not  quit  without  seriously  exposing  them- 
selves to  the  formidable  flights  of  horsemen,  especially  about 
the  banks  and  channel  of  the  river  should  they  attempt 
to  cross  it.  The  conclusions  of  the  generals  were  duly 
reflected  in  the  entrails  of  the  sacrifices,  which  on  either  side 
were  interpreted  so  as  to  promise  success  in  repelling  attack, 
but  failure  in  case  of  commencing  it.  Such  was  the  report 
made  to  the  Hellenic  generals  on  the  second  day  after  the 
army  had  taken  up  its  new  position.  Their  soothsayer  was 
Tisamenus,  son  of  Antiochus,  an  lamid  of  Elis,  and  as  such 
1  Herod,  vii.  103.  a  Ib.  vii.  102. 


iv.]  PERSIANS  PREPARE  FOR  FINAL  CONQUEST.    75 

a  member  of  a  highly-reputed  family  of  hereditary  diviners ; 
the  origin  of  their  ancestor  and  his  art  furnishes  the  mythical 
adornment  of  an  ode  of  Pindar  for  a  mule-car  victory  at 
Olympia  gained  by  a  relative  of  the  clan  some  ten  years 
after  the  present  date.  Tisamenus  had  been  engaged  by 
the  Spartans  for  this  war  under  circumstances  calculated 
— we  may  probably  say  literally  so — to  raise  confidence  in 
him  to  the  highest  degree.  They  had  made  a  concession — 
unparalleled  since  the  mythical  instance  of  Melampus,  which 
it  mimicked  —  of  adopting  him  and  his  brother  also — the 
latter  on  raised  terms  after  their  first  hesitation — as  a  Spartan 
citizen ;  for  it  had  been  promised  to  him  by  the  Delphic  oracle 
that  he  should  preside  as  diviner  at  five  first-class  victories, 
and  of  these  not  one  was  as  yet  accomplished.  Tisamenus — 
so  much  for  the  consciousness  of  the  prophetic  faculty — had 
first  interpreted  the  oracle  as  promising  a  victory  in  the  pen- 
tathlon, but  missed  it  through  failure  in  the  wrestling-match 
against  Hieronymus  the  Andrian  at  Olympia.  Pausanias  saw 
the  statue  of  the  victor  athlete  there  centuries  after.  The 
credit  of  the  oracle  was  saved,  apparently  without  damage 
to  that  of  the  merely  instrumental  diviner,  by  the  alter- 
native reference  to  military  victories.  Herodotus  catalogues 
its  fulfilments  in  this  sense,  with  a  simplicity  of  faith 
that  vindicates  the  prudence  of  the  politicians  who,  what- 
ever their  own  faith, — and  the  survival  of  dread  is  not 
inconsistent  with  mistrust, — could  not  prudently  forgo  any 
influence  either  for  encouragement  or  restraint.  Aristides, 
according  to  Plutarch,  had  obtained  a  Pythian  response  which 
was  inconveniently — or  conveniently — equivocal.  It  might 
even  have  sanctioned  a  present  retreat  or  renewed  contest 
in  Attica.  As  matters  stood,  means  were  afterwards  found 
for  reconciling  it  with  a  station  near  an  ancient  fane  of 
Eleusinian  goddesses,  which,  if  not  the  best  strategically, 
was  at  least  unavoidable.  Near  such  a  fane,  we  learn  from 
Herodotus,  the  battle  raged  at  last,  so  that  Plutarch  appears 


76  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

to  be  in  error  in  placing  it  in  proximity  to  Hysiae,  the 
earlier  Athenian  *  station. 

Like  ceremonies  with  like  result  were  proceeding  in  the 
Persian  camp,  where  Mardonius  chafed  impatiently  under 
the  restraint  they  imposed  upon  him.  His  soothsayer,  Hege- 
sistratus,  was  also  of  Elis  and  of  the  Telliad  branch  of  the 
lamid  clan ;  but  to  him  no  good  fortune  is  ascribed.  He 
had  once  escaped  death  at  Spartiat  hands  by  breaking  from 
prison,  where  he  had  slipped  bond  by  mutilating  his  foot; 
he  was  now  by  his  own  hatred  and  a  heavy  price  engaged 
against  the  Spartans  on  the  side  of  the  Mede,  but  to  little 
purpose,  as  he  was  doomed  to  be  caught  and  put  to  death  by 
them  at  last,  when  again  as  vainly  exercising  his  function 
at  Zacynthus. 

The  Medising  Greeks  had  also  their  diviner,  Hippomachus, 
a  Leucadian,  who  naturally  told  the  same  tale  as  Hegesistra- 
tus,  and  as  day  drew  on  tediously  after  day,  forbade  joining 
battle,  and  so  aided  the  temporising  policy  of  the  Thebans, 
who  still  urged  upon  the  fretting  Persian  that  corruption,  if 
but  sufficiently  unsparing,  and  combined  with  delay,  must 
infallibly  break  up  the  Greek  confederacy. 

Herodotus,  though  assuming  throughout  that  in  the  Greek 
cities  without  distinction  there  were  men  in  influential  posi- 
tions so  susceptible  of  bribery  as  to  make  such  a  policy  by  far 
the  most  natural  and  promising,  yet  warns  us  not  to  disallow 
the  existence  of  a  healthy  patriotism — which  he  asserts 
with  enthusiasm — in  the  very  communities  most  liable  to  be 
weakened  and  disabled  by  the  selfish  treachery  of  a  class. 
It  was  not  without  some  special  encouragement  that  the 
Medising  Greeks  beyond  the  Asopus  promised  speedy  fruits 
from  such  intrigues.  Treachery  had  obtained  some  footing 
even  in  the  Athenian  camp,  and,  however  serious  in  itself, 
would  certainly  be  magnified  by  agents  with  the  treasures 
of  Persia  at  command.  The  head-quarters  of  the  inchoate 

1  Ariel,  la. 


iv.]  PERSIANS  PREPARE  FOR  FINAL  CONQUEST.    77 

conspiracy  were  in  a  house  at  Plataea, — the  haunt  of  dis- 
contented men,  whose  importance  was  originally  based  on 
family  and  wealth,  and  was  now  reduced  both  by  the 
impoverishing-  ravages  of  the  war,  and  by  the  emergence 
of  new  men  at  the  requirement  of  the  country  for  the 
service  of  more  genuine  personal  endowments.  Even  the 
democratic  innovations  of  Cleisthenes  were  not  likely  to  be 
held  irreversible,  when  the  tone  of  the  embattled  combatants 
by  land  and  sea  already  threatened  their  extension.  An 
attempt  at  oligarchical  if  not  tyrannous  reaction  was  always 
ready  to  arise  amidst  the  difficulties  of  a  Greek  democracy ; 
it  was  only  by  promptitude  that  Athens  had  been  saved  from 
such  a  crisis,  when  Miltiades  was  afield  with  her  citizens  at 
Marathon.  The  leaven  was  still  within  the  lump, — and  every 
Athenian  politician  knew  it  be  there,  and  the  apprehension 
of  it  was  never  so  justifiable,  or  so  soon  likely  to  be  con- 
firmed by  events,  as  while  it  was  being  made  a  stock  jest 
against  Demus  by  Aristophanes.  The  first  step  towards  the 
'  dissolution  of  the  demus '  was  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the 
Persians,  and  it  would  be  no  matter  of  surprise  if  the  Delphic 
oracle,  which  seemed  to  counsel  retreat  to  Eleusis,  and  which 
Aristides  could  only  with  difficulty  strain  into  an  equivoca- 
tion compatible  with  strategic  requirements,  were  procured 
by  the  bribes  of  Medising  Athenians.  The  ears  of  statesmen 
worthy  of  the  name,  like  the  eyes  of  physicians,  are  quick 
for  symptoms  that  ought  to  be  expected.  Aristides  was  on 
the  alert,  but  took  measures  rather  to  disperse  the  germs 
of  mischief  than  to  attempt  to  extirpate  radically  what  he 
was  well  aware  could  never  be  absolutely  destroyed ;  and 
at  the  present  conjuncture  especially  it  was  better  tho- 
roughly to  overawe  the  discontented  than  to  reveal  to  them 
their  own  strength  and  thus  drive  them  into  more  com- 
plete intercommunication,  or  to  risk  a  panic  by  publishing 
the  existence  of  treachery  at  such  a  moment.  He  seized 
eight  only  in  the  camp,  brought  two  of  these  as  the 


78  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

most  compromised — Aeschines  of  the  deme  of  Lampriae, 
and  Agesias  an  Acharnian  —  to  immediate  trial,  and  on 
being,  perhaps  purposely,  rid  of  these  by  flight,  had  a 
pretext  for  moderate  treatment  of  the  rest.  To  the  ac- 
cessories— left  in  uncertainty  whether  they  might  or  might 
not  be  known — he  indicated  the  field  of  the  coming  battle 
as  the  true  court  in  which  it  was  open  to  them  to  clear 
themselves  of  all  imputations.  The  secret  of  this  policy 
appears  to  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  tenderness  of  the 
Potidaeans  to  the  traitors  of  Scione. 

For  eight  days  the  two  armies  were  thus  confronted  in 
inaction,  when  Timegenidas  son  of  Herpys,  the  colleague  of 
Attaginus  at  Thebes,  suggested  to  Mardonius  a  stroke  which 
inflicted  serious  loss  and  embarrassment  on  the  Greeks.  By 
their  movement  westward  the  latter  had  left  unguarded  a 
road  that  led  direct  from  Thebes  to  the  same  pass  over 
Mount  Cithaeron  by  which  their  chief  supplies  reached 
Plataea,  along  a  branch  road  from  the  Pass  of  Three  Heads 
as  the  Boeotians,  or  of  Oak-heads  as  the  Athenians  called 
it.  A  body  of  horse  despatched  at  night  swooped  upon 
a  train  of  five  hundred  beasts  of  burden  laden  with  provisions 
for  the  Greek  camp;  in  a  fierce  onslaught  they  killed  ^a 
number  of  the  animals  as  well  as  the  men  conducting  them, 
and  carried  off  the  remainder  beyond  the  Asopus.  Nor 
was  the  Greek  army  in  the  position  it  now  occupied  able 
to  secure  the  passage  for  the  future,  and  their  supplies 
were  in  consequence  blocked  up  in  the  l  mountains. 

Two  days  more  were  marked  by  no  further  hostilities  than 
harassing  annoyance  to  the  Greeks  from  the  enemy's  horse, 
which,  constantly  incited  but  not  much  aided  by  the  Thebans, 
skirmished  to  the  right  of  their  line  in  the  direction  of  the 
pass.  The  barbarians  also  came  down  as  far  as  the  Asopus, 
and  there  annoyed  the  Greeks  with  missiles;  but  neither 
crossed  the  channel. 

1  Herod,  ix.  39-50. 


iv.]  PERSIANS  PREPARE  FOR  FINAL  CONQUEST.    79 

By  the  eleventh  day  the  impatience  of  Mardonius  under 
the  restraint  to  which  he  had  subjected  himself  by  deference 
to  the  diviners  of  his  Greek  allies,  and  in  a  degree  to  Arta- 
bazus,  who  was  among  the  few  Persians  whose  authority  was 
conferred  by  a  personal  hold  on  the  Great  King,  became  no 
longer  endurable.  Remonstrance  served  but  to  precipitate 
his  resolution.  The  only  effect  of  their  delay  had  been  that 
the  Greek  army  had  been  growing  stronger  and  stronger, 
and  would  continue  to  do  so.  The  Persian  army  must  act 
at  once,  before  their  vast  superiority,  which  now  assured  to 
them  the  victory,  was  further  impaired;  they  must  not 
force  Hegesistratus  and  his  victims  by  continued  pertinacity, 
but  just  leave  them  alone,  and  join  battle,  employing  simply 
the  old  Persian  forms.  His  resolution  had  only  been  confirmed 
by  the  plain-spoken  objections  of  Artabazus,  who,  in  terms 
that  could  not  but  be  offensive,  and  intentionally  so  to  a 
sanguine  chief  who  saw  victory  before  him,  urged  that  the 
entire  army  should  fall  back  at  once  and,  relying  on  Theban 
fortifications,  remain  on  the  defensive ;  they  would  there 
be  within  easy  reach  of  abundant  stores  and  forage,  the 
exhaustion  of  which  in  their  advanced  position  must  no 
doubt  have  weighed  with  Mardonius ;  they  could  resort  to 
intrigue  and  bribery,  as  recommended  by  the  Thebans,  and 
wait  tranquilly  for  a  result  that  must  come  about  without 
any  battle  of  importance. 

But  against  the  absolute  determination  of  the  appointed 
head  of  the  expedition — who  was  not  only  brother-in-law 
to  Xerxes,  as  having  married  his  sister  ]  Artazostres,  but 
also  at  once  son-in-law  and  nephew,  both  by  blood  and  mar- 
riage, of  2  Darius — nothing  was  to  be  said ;  a  very  short 
leading  question  silenced  the  patrons  of  the  diviners.  The 
Persian  officers  and  Hellenic  commanders  were  assembled ; 
to  the  demand,  Were  they  aware  of  any  oracle  predicting 
the  destruction  of  the  Persians  in  Greece,  they  could  only 

1  Herod,  vi.  43.  3  Ib.  vii.  2  ;  vii.  5. 


80  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  [CHAP. 

say  No,  or  be  silent.  '  Well  then,1  he  resumed,  '  I  will 
tell  you  that  such  an  oracle  there  is  ;  but  it  declares  the 
catastrophe  to  be  contingent  on  our  sacking  Delphi.  This, 
forewarned,  we  have  neither  done  nor  attempted,  and  there- 
fore let  all  who  are  friends  to  the  Persians  know  that  our 
victory  over  the  Greeks  is  certain.' 

Herodotus  takes  upon  himself  to  say  that  he  knew  what 
oracle  Mardonius  had  in  mind,  but  that  it  was  entirely  mis- 
applied by  him — not  an  unusual  accident  with  prophecies.  He 
himself  knew  prophecies,  both  of  Bacis  and  Musaeus,  much  more 
to  the  purpose,  and  quotes  one  which  is  certainly  as  explicit 
as  could  be  desired — whenever  it  may  have  been  composed. 

The  council,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  broke  up  with  a  command 
to  have  all  in  readiness  for  action  the  next  morning1. 

In  the  depth  of  that  night  a  horseman  from  the  Median 
camp  rode  over  secretly  to  the  Athenian  outposts,  and,  obtain- 
ing an  interview  with  the  commanders,  gave  warning  of 
what  was  to  be  expected  on  the  morrow,  that  they  might  not 
be  taken  unawares.  He  added  the  encouraging  information 
that  the  sacrifices  were  still  adverse  to  the  Persians,  and  that 
Mardonius,  who  had  been  long  ago  eager  for  battle,  and  had 
done  all  he  could  to  get  more  favourable  omens,  was  no\v 
going  to  fight,  notwithstanding  their  adverseness,  at  break  of 
day ;  he  counselled  them  to  stand  their  ground  even  should 
the  onset  be  deferred,  as  their  enemies  would  run  short  of  sup- 
plies within  a  few  days  at  farthest.  'And  should  this  war 
have  the  event  that  you  desire,  let  some  thought  be  taken  of 
me  and  of  my  liberation,  who — a  Greek  by  descent — have 
run  this  risk  from  sympathy  with  general  Greece ;  I  am 
Alexander  of  Macedon.' 

This  news  was  immediately  communicated  by  the  Athenian 
commanders  to  Pausanias  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  line, 
and  elicited  a  proposal  to  which  the  Athenians  at  once  as- 
sented, professing  indeed  that  only  delicacy  prevented  their 
own  suggestion  of  it  at  first  as  the  most  reasonable  plan. 


iv.]     PERSIA  NS  PREP  A  RE  FOR  FINAL  CONQ  UEST.     8 1 

It  was  that  the  Athenians  should  change  places  with  the 
Lacedaemonians — from  the  left  wing  to  the  right — so  as  to  be 
opposed  to  the  Persians,  of  whose  mode  of  fighting  they  had 
had  experience  at  Marathon,  while  the  Lacedaemonians  would 
be  opposed  to  familiar  enemies — Boeotians  and  Thessalians. 
The  readiness  with  which  Pausanias,  Spartan  as  he  is,  resigns 
the  traditional  post  of  honour  is  to  his  credit  as  a  general, 
if  in  truth  the  change  had  a  sound  military  motive.  The 
explanation  of  this,  though  passed  in  silence  by  Herodotus, 
lies  no  doubt  in  the  fact  already  noticed,  of  the  large  propor- 
tion of  bowmen  in  the  Athenian  armament,  adapting  it  pecu- 
liarly for  resisting  troops,  especially  cavalry,  equipped  witli 
the  same  weapon.  The  surmounting  or  uptearing  of  such 
a  fence  as  the  Persians  were  wont  to  place  before  them  was 
again  manifestly  a  feat  more  easy  for  Athenians  than  for 
Lacedaemonians,  whose  drill,  however  perfect  in  itself,  left 
them  always  at  a  loss  before  a  fortification  which  compelled 
them  to  break  line  and  rely  on  individual  activity.  That 
the  Greeks — the  Boeotian  hoplites  especially — whom  they 
took  in  exchange  as  opponents  were  in  any  degree  less  formid- 
able is  not  to  be  thought  of,  and  indeed,  if  they  had  been, 
the  consideration  would  certainly  not  have  been  entertained. 

A  greater  difficulty  lies  in  the  relative  numbers  of  the 
interchanged.  The  Athenians  and  Plataeans  numbered  only 
8,600  against  10,000  Lacedaemonian  hoplites;  and,  still  more 
important,  their  light-armed  were  again  only  8,600,  while 
those  of  the  Lacedaemonians  were  40,000 ;  and  no  doubt,  if 
they  moved  at  all,  they  moved  in  a  body.  The  interchange 
therefore  involved  much  more  than  an  alteration  of  mere 
extremities ;  the  extremities  of  the  array  constituted  the  bulk 
of  it,  and  the  Lacedaemonians  by  far  the  larger  proportion. 
Their  movement  therefore  would  throw  the  Corinthians, 
Sicyonians,  and  Troezenians  and  their  associates  much  more 
to  the  right,  and  bring  them  as  well  as  the  Athenians  into 
contact  with  the  Persians. 


82  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

The  change  agreed  upon  was  made  at  daybreak,  but 
the  Boeotians  recognised  their  new  antagonists  and  ap- 
prised Mardonius,  who  on  his  side  again  brought  round  the 
Persians  to  confront  them.  Pausanias,  finding  that  the 
movement  was  observed,  carried  back  the  Spartiats — Aristides 
overcoming  some  reluctance  among  the  Athenians  to  be 
marched  and  countermarched,  as  they  said,  like  helots;  and, 
Mardonius  on  his  side  countermanding  the  Persians,  the 
original  positions  were  maintained  unaltered. 

That  there  is  no  hint  in  Herodotus  of  an  attempt  of  the 
enemy  to  use  their  numbers  to  outflank  the  Greeks  is  in  favour 
of  the  fact  stated  in  the  otherwise  wretched  account  of  the 
battle  by  Diodorus,  that  the  left  wing  was  protected  by 
high  ground  ;  the  deep  formation  of  the  Persians  noticed  by 
Herodotus  may,  however,  have  been  according  to  customary 
tactics,  and  not  from  any  necessity.  Otherwise,  as  at  Mara- 
thon, the  chief  Greek  strength  was,  stationed  on  the  wings. 

The  pride  of  Mardonius  interpreted  this  attempted  change 
as  due  to  fear  on  the  part  of  the  Spartans  to  encounter  his 
vaunted  Persians;  he  was  at  least  surprised  at  movements 
apparently  so  inconsistent  with  notorious  Spartan  tenacity 
of  position  on  the  field  of  battle — the  point  of  honour  to 
which  Leonidas  had  so  lately  approved  his  loyalty ;  and  he 
took  the  opportunity  to  taunt  them  with  renouncing  a 
maxim,  from  their  unreasoning  reverence  for  which  he  would 
fain  have  profited  He  is  represented  as  having  promised 
Xerxes  an  easy  victory  over  tribes  who  in  their  quarrels 
amongst  themselves  had  not  the  wit  to  employ  their  common 
language  to  settle  disputes  without  fighting ;  and  who, 
when  they  fought,  were  too  stupid  to  take  advantage  of 
opportunities  or  position,  but  had  no  other  thought  than 
to  appoint  a  meeting  in  a  fair  field  and  fight  it  out  pre- 
cisely where  the  vanquished  had  no  chance  of  escape  and  the 
victors  must  needs  purchase  victory  at  the  very  dearest  price. 
Taunts  had  been  before  employed  without  effect  to  overcome 


iv .]     PERSIA  XS  PREPARE  FOR  FIN  A  L  CO  NQ  UEST.     8  3 

the  disappointing  appreciation  by  the  Greeks  of  the  com- 
parative value  of  positions ;  and  he  now  despatched  a  herald 
with  a  formal  challenge  in  terms  that  might  well  wound 
the  feelings  of  Spartans  of  the  ancient  rigid  school,  already 
bewildered  by  the  frank  manoeuvring  of  their  general.  A 
dead  silence  however  was  the  only  greeting  which  the  Persian 
herald  received  when  he  taunted  the  Lacedaemonians  with 
being  false  to  their  principles  in  deserting  their  post,  with 
flying  from  Persians,  whom  they  set  the  Athenians  to 
encounter  while  they  went  themselves  to  combat  the  Per- 
sians' slaves ;  if  they  would  vindicate  their  renown  let 
them  come  down,  Spartans  alone  opposed  to  Persians  alone, 
in  equal  numbers,  whether  the  victory  as  between  the 
armies  were  to  be  decided  by  the  result,  if  so  they  pleased, 
or  the  rest  still  left  to  fight  it  out  afterwards. 

Between  marchings,  countermarchings,  and  messages  the 
day  had  already  worn  on ;  but  when  the  herald  returned  with 
the  report  that  he  had  been  left  unnoticed  after  waiting  a 
considerable  time,  Mardonius  was  more  than  ever  confirmed 
in  his  belief  that  Greek  valour  had  been  over-estimated,  and 
elated  at  the  prospect  of  a  'cool  victory/  He  at  once  delivered 
his  most  effective  force  of  mounted  archery  against  the  two 
;idv;mced  wings  of  the  Greeks,  and  then  in  flying  clouds 
against  the  intermediate  bodies.  The  Athenians  on  the  left 
had  been  constantly  harassed  from  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Asopus,  and  were  now  driven  back  and  excluded  from  further 
access  to  the  water  of  the  river.  The  supply  for  the  entire 
army  thus  became  dependent  on  the  fount  Gargaphia,  near 
the  Lacedaemonian  position  ;  and  this  also  was  cut  off  in  the 
progress  of  the  contest  by  the  enemy's  horse,  who  succeeded 
in  choking  it  and  rendering  it  unavailable— an  occasion  on 
which  we  see  the  important  service  that  might  have  been 
rendered  by  the  bowmen  of  the  Athenians. 


G  2 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA. THE  DEATH  OF  MARDONIUS. 

B.C.  479,  September;  01.  75.  2. 

THE  position  of  the  Greeks,  already  embarrassed  by  the 
blockade  of  their  supplies  in  the  defiles  of  the  mountains, 
was  thus  made  finally  untenable.  The  generals  assembled 
in  council  with  Pausanias  at  the  right  wing,  and  it  was 
determined  that  if  the  Persians,  as  was  likely  and  as  proved 
to  be  the  case,  deferred  their  general  attack  over  the  day, 
the  entire  line  should  be  drawn  back  under  cover  of  the 
night  to  the  so-called  Island,  some  ten  stadia,  or  less  than  a 
mile  and  a  half,  distant  from  the  fount  Gargaphia,  in  front 
of  the  city  of  Plataea;  this  was  ground  lying  between 
streams  that  flowed  from  Cithaeron  for  some  distance  about 
three  stadia  apart,  till  they  united  in  one  channel  forming 
the  Oeroe,  that  flowed  westward  to  an  inlet  of  the  Corinthian 
gulf.  On  the  usual  principle  of  geographical  personification, 
still  too  spontaneous  to  be  distinguished  from  matter  of  fact, 
Oeroe  was  said  by  the  natives  not  merely  obliquely  to 
have  been,  but  to  be  the  daughter  of  the  more  important 
eastward -flowing  Asopus.  Here  there  was  abundance  of 
water  ;  and  some  degree  of  protection  from  the  horse — which 
during  the  day  had  inflicted  unceasing  loss  and  worry — was 
afforded  by  interposed  marshy  '  ground,  and  roughness  or 
steepness  of  approach  :  moreover  from  such  a  station  a  full 

1  Sir  Wm.  Cell,  Itin.  Or. 


THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  85 

half  of  the  force  could  be  spared  to  effect  the  reopening  of 
the  communications  through  the  passes. 

Night  fell,  and  at  the  appointed  hour  the  numerous  bodies 
of  troops,  from  the  Corinthians  to  the  Megarians  inclusive, 
who  had  been  drawn  up  under  their  own  leaders  in  the 
interval  between  the  Lacedaemonians  and  the  Athenians, 
commenced  their  march.  In  the  loose  coherence  of  the  army, 
however,  their  destination  was  as  much  a  matter  of  l  agree- 
ment as  of  imperative  command,  and  with  a  hurry  which 
amounted  to  flight  from  the  dreaded  horse  they  retired 
almost  double  the  appointed  distance,  not  stopping  till  they 
reached  the  temple  of  Here,  under  the  walls  of  Plataea, 
twenty  stadia — some  two  miles  and  a  half — from  the  fount 
Gargaphia.  Here  they  took  up  a  regular  station.  It  is  most 
probable  that  it  was  this  portion  of  the  army — the  least 
homogeneous  and  proved — that  was  intended  to  march  to 
the  relief  of  the  passes;  but  in  any  case  the  commanders, 
whether  acting  on  their  own  discretion  or  carried  away  by 
their  troops  in  spite  of  it,  by  retiring  to  such  a  distance 
ceased  to  be  available  as  a  reserve,  and  were  disabled  from 
supporting  either  one  or  the  other  of  the  wings  in  case  of 
an  attack  during  their  convergence  to  a  new  position. 

The  centre  having  thus,  according  to  agreement,  moved  off 
the  ground  first,  Pausanias  gave  the  word  for  the  Lacedae- 
monians to  follow ;  while  the  Athenians,  whose  route  would 
be  shorter  and  easier,  awaited  notice  of  their  progress  to 
move  in  concert  with  them.  This  notice  was,  however,  both 
strangely  and  alarmingly  delayed.  The  fact  was,  that  when 
all  the  taxiarchs  of  Pausanias  were  prepared  to  march,  there 
was  one — Amompharetus,  son  of  Poliathes,  the  lochagus  of  a 
troop  (the  troop  of  Pitana  according  to  Herodotus,  though 
Thucydides,  with  an  emphasis  not  quite  explained,  denies  that 
there  was  such  a  troop) — who  positively  refused  to  budge. 

1  Sir  Wm.  Cell,  Itin.  Gr.  ix.  33. 


86  HISTORY.  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

He  had  executed  the  countermarches  parallel  to  the  enemy, 
without  making  an  open  difficulty,  though  not  without 
scruples;  but  his  old  Spartan  rigour  had  since  been  galled 
by  the  insults  of  the  Persian  challenge,  and  he  now  declared 
that  he  was  '  not  one  to  fly  from  the  foreigners  or  be  a  party 
to  the  disgrace  of  Sparta.'  Pausanias  and  Euryanax  ex- 
hausted themselves  in  endeavours  to  convince  him  of  his 
absurdity,  but  arguments  and  commands  were  alike  vain. 
The  dilemma  was  perplexing,  and  even  dreadful.  To  leave 
the  man  behind  with  his  troop  was  to  leave  them  to  anni- 
hilation. Such  a  loss  in  itself  was  serious,  and  moreover  his 
motive  for  such  inopportune  wrong-headed  ness  was  one  that 
appealed  and  might  hereafter  appeal  seriously  to  Spartan 
sympathies.  It  was  the  great  merit  of  Pausanias  that  he 
had  learned  a  lesson  from  the  splendid  but  wasteful  self- 
sacrifice  of  Leonidas,  and  was  capable  of  subordinating 
Spartan  scrupulousness  to  the  urgencies  of  new  conditions. 
But  in  this  host  beside  the  Asopus  was  the  sole  survivor 
of  the  three  hundred  of  Leonidas,  still  fretting  under  the 
ignominy  with  which  he  was  marked  only  because  he  h:i»l 
not,  like  an  associate  who  had  the  equal  and  sufficient 
excuse  of  ophthalmia  for  absence,  thrown  his  life  uselessly 
away.  The  achievements  of  Aristodemus  in  the  battle  that 
then  ensued  would  have  entitled  him  to  the  prize  of  pre- 
eminent valour,  had  they  not  been  the  frenzied  deeds  of  a 
man  who  was  only  desirous  to  die,  and  moreover  had 
quitted  his  place  in  the  ranks  to  perform  them.  The 
best  part  of  a  night  might  well  be  consumed  in  con- 
tending with  feelings  that  could  on  such  grounds  exclude 
Aristodemus  from  posthumous  honours  as  a  'recreant.'  In 
the  meantime  the  Athenians,  hearing  nothing  of  any  com- 
mencement of  movement  by  the  Laconian  camp,  and  bearing 
in  mind  former  disappointments  in  the  execution  of  Laeonian 
engagements,  became  not  only  uneasy  but  seriously  distrust- 
ful, and  despatched  a  mounted  messenger  for  instructions 


v.J  THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  8T 

and  information.  The  quarrel  had  reached  its  height  when 
he  arrived,  and  as  he  stood  by,  Amompharetus  was  ex- 
pressing his  reply  to  the  abuse  of  the  generals  by  lifting 
a  great  rock  with  both  hands,  and  declaring  as  he  threw 
it  at  their  feet,  '  Thus  I  cast  in  my  vote  not  to  fly  before 
the  foreigners.' 

Pausanias  bade  the  messenger  report  the  difficulty  thus 
interposed  by  the  obstinacy  of  a  madman,  and  desired  the 
Athenian  generals  to  incline  in  their  march  towards  their 
left,  so  as  to  co-operate  more  directly  with  the  delayed 
Lacedaemonians.  Time  indeed  was  pressing,  since  it  was 
absolutely  imperative  to  move  a  body  of  fifty-three  thousand 
men — Lacedaemonians  and  Tegeans,  light  and  heavy  armed 
— to  some  distance  at  least  before  daybreak.  Pausanias 
therefore  set  them  in  motion ;  but  even  then,  unwilling 
to  take  all  the  risk  of  the  possible  obstinacy  of  the 
lochagus,  he  resolved  to  halt  at  an  intermediate  position, 
from  which  he  could  still  help  him  if  follow  he  would 
not, — directing  the  march  meantime  across  a  series  of 
low  hills  towards  the  higher  ground  beyond,  under  the 
declivities  of  Cithaeron  and  inaccessible  to  the  hostile 
cavalry.  It  was  only  as  morning  broke  that  the  appearance 
of  Amompharetus  and  his  lochus  enabled  the  march  to  con- 
tinue as  originally  proposed.  The  movement  of  the  entire 
force  had  at  last  convinced  him  that  he  was  not  to  have 
his  own  way,  and  had  brought  him — still  at  deliberate  pace 
— to  move  his  men.  But  daybreak  also  revealed  the  Persian 
cavalry  on  the  alert,  and  shewed  that  an  immediate  attack 
was  to  be  expected  while  the  ranks  were  still  on  ground 
exposed  to  their  onset.  Pausanias  disposed  his  troops  on 
the  march  in  the  best  available  order,  and  despatched  a 
horseman  to  the  still  distant  Athenian  force  to  urge  them 
to  come  up  to  his  support  as  speedily  as  possible,  or  if  this 
could  not  be  done  to  send  him  their  detachment  of  archers 
to  oppose  the  cavalry,  the  entire  force  of  which  was  coming 


88  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

down  upon  him.  He  was  in  fact  overtaken  by  the  nearer 
detachments,  and  in  the  absence  of  the  bowmen,  suffered 
considerably  before  he  could  reach  a  favourable  position  near 
a  fane  of  the  Eleusinian  Demeter,  at  a  place  called  Argiopis, 
on  the  stream  Moloeis,  ten  stadia,  or  about  a  mile,  from  his 
starting-point.  This  is  the  distance  assigned  for  the  Island, 
and  of  this  therefore,  allowing  still  for  some  indirectness 
in  the  march,  the  Moloeis  was  probably  one  boundary,  and 
so  the  verge  at  least  had  been  attained  of  the  desired 
position.  That  the  Demetrion  was  intended  to  be  included 
in  this  the  oracle  already  quoted  may  be  taken  to  prove. 
The  excitement  in  the  enemy's  camp  was  by  this  time 
intense ;  the  course  of  the  Athenians  from  the  flat  ground 
by  the  Asopus  led  them  behind  a  ridge  of  low  hillocks, 
where  they  were  altogether  invisible  from  the  Persian 
head-quarters.  The  vaunted  and  immoveable  Spartans  had 
also  evacuated  their  position,  and  were  already  descried  at 
a  distance  in  full  retreat  for  the  passes,  while  the  forces  of 
the  Greek  centre  were  remoter  still.  The  exultation  and 
confidence  that  now  hurried  Mardonius  into  precipitate  action 
cannot  be  better  expressed  than  in  the  short  speech  assigned 
to  him  by  Herodotus.  He  summoned  Thorax  of  Larksa 
and  his  brothers  Eurypylus  and  Thrasydeius,  and  in  the 
presence  of  Artabazus  pointed  to  the  scene  beyond  the 
Asopus.  '  Ye  sons  of  Aleuas,'  he  said,  '  what  have  ye  to  say 
now  at  sight  of  this  deserted  station, — ye,  the  neighbours  of 
the  Lacedaemonians,  who  persisted  in  declaring  that  they 
never  fled  from  battle,  and  that  they  were  the  first  of  all 
warriors  ?  Ye  beheld  before  how  they  shifted  post,  and  now 
see  with  all  the  rest  of  us  how  they  have  run  away  under 
cover  of  night.  As  soon  as  the  time  came  for  them  to  be 
put  to  proof  in  battle  against  those  who  are  really  and  truly 
the  bravest  of  men,  they  have  exposed  themselves  as  mani- 
festly of  no  account,  even  when  compared  to  Greeks  who  are 
themselves  of  no  account.  For  you,  who  praise  them  for 


v.]           THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  89 

what  you  know  them  to  have  done,  and  are  quite  without 
experience  of  the  Persians,  I  make  considerable  excuse;  but 
with  respect  to  Artabazus,  that  he  should  have  been  fright- 
ened by  the  Lacedaemonians,  and  yielded  from  fear  to  the 
craven  opinion  that  we  ought  to  break  up  our  encampment 
and  go  to  be  besieged  in  Thebes,  has  indeed  astonished  me. 
The  King  shall  hear  of  it  from  me  yet; — though  this  is  a 
matter  that  will  have  to  be  discussed  at  another  time  and 
elsewhere.  What  we  have  now  in  hand  is  to  frustrate  this 
design  of  theirs  and  make  pursuit  until  we  overtake  them, 
and  exact  penalty  for  all  that  they  have  done  to  the  injury 
of  the  Persians/ 

This  threat  against  a  haughty  rival  in  the  favour  of  the 
King,  who,  opposing  the  expedition  from  the  first,  had  co- 
operated unwillingly,  and,  chafing  at  subordination,  had  taken 
every  opportunity  to  thwart  his  chief,  might  not  have  been 
uttered  had  not  Mardonius  believed  that  no  more  work  was 
before  him  than  a  triumphant  slaughter  of  disorganised  fugi- 
tives, or  had  he  known  how  entirely  the  40,000  seasoned 
soldiers  under  Artabazus — remains  of  the  escort  of  60,000 — 
were  by  personal  attachment  at  the  disposal  of  their  leader, 
and  withdrawn  from  his  own  command. 

In  wild  excitement  the  Persian  division  of  the  army  was 
at  once  despatched  across  the  Asopus  to  follow  at  a  run  on 
the  track  of  the  Greeks,  who  were  supposed  to  be  in  hasty 
flight ;  Mardonius  himself  on  a  white  Nisaean  charger  led  on 
the  mounted  division  of  the  Immortals — one  thousand  out  of 
the  ten  thousand,  who  were  all  picked  men ;  a  corps  distin- 
guished by  extravagantly  rich  accoutrements,  supplied  by  a 
privileged  commissariat  and  trains  of  camels,  and  accom- 
panied in  camp  by  the  harems  of  the  various  officers,  and  by 
all  the  luxuries  of  l  peace.  The  sally  of  the  Persians  roused 
the  rest  of  the  camp.  The  leaders  of  all  nations,  without 

1  Herod,  ix.  58 ;  vii.  83. 


90  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CUAP. 

waiting-  for  definite  orders,  which  under  the  circumstances 
were  possibly  not  sent,  let  loose  their  multitudes,  who 
rushed  on  in  entire  neglect  of  ranks  or  array, — a  shouting- 
mob,  the  fastest  only  first, — with  no  thought  but  that  the 
Greeks  were  to  be  had  for  the  snatching. 

The  Athenians  had  wheeled  at  the  summons  of  Pausanias, 
but  were  now  threatened  themselves,  and  indeed  presently 
engaged,  while  still  detached,  by  the  Medising  Greeks  of 
the  Persian  right  wing ;  and  the  battle  was  thus  divided  in 
the  beginning  into  two  independent  conflicts. 

The  Lacedaemonians  were  overtaken  first,  drawn  up — 
hoplites,  light-armed,  and  helots — with  the  Arcadian  Tegeans 
beside  them.  Strong  in  his  post, — where,  from  the  nature 
of  the  ground,  attacks  of  cavalry,  though  present  in  more 
force,  would  have  been  of  less  avail,  and  awaiting  the  suc- 
cour of  the  Athenians,  or  even  the  central  forces  of  which 
the  remoteness  could  not  be  known, — Pausanias  again  held 
his  men  in  hand;  and,  galled  as  they  were  by  the  Persian 
arrows,  commanded  them — while  still  the  sacrifices  were 
unfavourable  to  action — to  remain  quiet,  crouching  on  the 
knee,  and  protected  as  far  as  possible  by  their  shields. 
The  hostile  arrows  began  to  fall  thick,  and  some  horse- 
approached  near  enough  to  engage;  men  were  falling  in 
the  unmoved  Greek  ranks.  It  was  now  that  Callicrates, 
the  very  stateliest  and  most  beautiful  man  in  the  entire 
army,  was  fatally  struck.  When  he  died  it  was  with  the 
complaint  on  his  lips,  not  at  meeting  death  in  the  cause 
of  Greece, — it  was  for  that  he  left  his  home, — but  that  he 
should  perish  without  having  lifted  a  hand,  without  having 
given  proof  of  the  qualities  apart  from  which  pride  in  the 
possession  of  bodily  beauty  was  admitted  by  the  Greek  to 
l>e  unauthorised  and  incomplete.  Still  the  attitude  of  the 
army  as  their  confident  assailants  came  on  was  perfectly 
tranquil ;  not  a  man  started  up,  not  a  weapon  stirred  ;  as 
from  one  moment  to  another  they  expected  the  signal  for 


v.]  THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  91 

opportune  action  from  God  and  their  commander.  He 
meantime  stood  distressed  beside  the  discouraging-  sacrifices, 
even  when  the  Persian  foot  were  coming  within  the  distance 
where  they  planted  in  the  ground  the  gerrha  or  wicker 
shields  that  were  to  protect  their  formidable  and  systematic 
archery,  but  where  the  closing  up  of  their  thickening  ranks 
would  impede  their  orderly  retirement  and  even  their  action, 
and  where  the  shock  of  conflict,  if  once  successful,  must  be 
decisive. 

It  was  just  when  opportunity  and  omens  had,  after  renewed 
trial,  been  recognised  by  the  Spartan  general  as  still  not 
coincident,  that  the  Tegeans,  less  enduring  of  such  stern 
control,  broke  the  line,  whether  with  or  without  command, 
and  rushed  to  the  attack ;  and  now  forthwith  the  expected 
omen  appeared  at  last,  and  with  a  suddenness  that  was  after- 
wards ascribed  to  a  momentary  prayer  addressed  by  Pausanias 
in  his  trouble  to  the  Cithaeronian  1Here  and  the  other  Plataean 
gods.  At  his  signal  the  whole  Lacedaemonian  host  rose  from 
its  quietude,  '  like  a  single  wild  beast  roused  from  its  lair, 
dangerous,  2  horrent.'  In  steady  order,  and  shield  to  shield 
(a  formation  known  as  the  synaspism),  they  closed  upon  the 
line  of  gerrha,  which  the  Persians  prepared  to  defend  reso- 
lutely, and  where,  their  bows  being  useless  at  such  close 
quarters,  they  fought  as  from  behind  a  breastwork,  with  a 
bravery  sufficient  to  vindicate  much  of  the  confidence  of  Mar- 
donius.  With  naked  hands  they  grasped  the  Doric  spears 
which  were  thrusting  at  their  chests  and  faces  with  desperate 
effect,  broke  off  abundance  of  them  across  the  fence,  and  even 
when  this  gave  way  resisted  as  furiously :  a  sustained  and 
stubborn  conflict  raged  by  the  very  fane  of  Demeter  as  they 
resorted  to  their  knives  and  scimitars  (acinaces),  tugging  at 
the  wall  of  shields,  and  hanging  upon  them  to  obtain  an 
opening  for  a  stroke.  This  sustained  valour,  if  taken  alone, 

1  Thucyd.  ii.  75;  Plut.  Arist.  18.  2  Plut.  Arlst.  18. 


92  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

would  have  made  them  no  unequal  foes,  seeing  that  in 
bodily  strength  they  were  on  a  par  with  the  Greeks ;  but 
in  such  a  conflict  they  fought  at  serious  disadvantage, 
since,  compared  with  the  hoplites,  they  were  naked  of 
defensive  armour,  while  they  were  far  inferior  in  dexterity 
in  wielding  their  weapons,  and  their  attacks  upon  a  line 
as  solid  and  continuous  as  a  wall  were  made  in  spasmodic 
onsets;  singly  even  or  in  tens,  or  in  bands  of  sometimes 
more  and  sometimes  less,  they  started  forward  upon  the 
Spartans  only  to  meet  their  death.  Yet  as  long  as  Mardo- 
nius  survived,  and  the  Thousand  under  his  immediate  ]  com- 
mand were  supporting  the  Median  battle  by  pressing  with 
serious  effect  on  the  Lacedaemonians,  there  was  no  sign  of 
giving  way.  But  eveu  the  Thousand  were  gradually  reduced 
by  death  and  wounds  ;  and  when  the  leader  disappeared, 
dismay  and  flight  at  once  took  possession  of  the  entire  army. 
A  stone  aimed  by  the  hand  of  a  Spartiat,  Aeimnestus,  struck 
Mardonius  on  the  head  as  he  rode  conspicuous  on  his  white 
charger,  and  broke  his  skull ;  and  then,  says  Herodotus, 
the  compensation  was  discharged  which,  as  the  oracle  had 
found  means  of  intimating,  was  to  be  paid  to  the  Spartans 
by  Mardonius  for  the  slaughter  of  their  king  Leonidas.  The 
historian  omits  a  moral  to  the  miserable  fact  which  he  re- 
cords on  the  same  page,  that  Aeimnestus,  who  was  now  so 
well  serving  the  cause  of  united  Greece,  was  to  meet  his  own 
death  afterwards  in  an  intestine  quarrel  among  the  Greeks 
2  themselves.  He  pauses  yet  again  before  proceeding  with 
the  incidents  of  the  flight  to  note  how  observable  it  was, 
that  in  the  course  of  this  battle,  raging  as  it  did  about  the 
grove  and  fane  of  Demeter,  not  a  single  Persian  died  or 
even  penetrated  within  the  temenos,  though  large  numbers 
fell  in  the  unconsecrated  ground  without  the  precinct.  '  In 
my  opinion,'  he  adds,  '  if  one  is  to  have  an  opinion  about 

1  Herod,  vii.  40.  *  Ib.  a..  64. 


v.]  THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  93 

divine  matters  at  all,  the  goddess-  herself  refused  to  admit 
them  because  they  had  set  fire  to  the  sacred  Anactorion  at 
^leusis.'  And  so  the  Greek  mind  is  set  at  rest  from  an 
apprehension  that  Persians  who  might  have  taken  refuge 
in  a  sacred  precinct  encircled  by  battle  might  either  have 
escaped,  or  not  have  been  spared  even  there. 

The  Athenian  force  had  only  arrived  within  hearing  of  the 
clamour  of  this  battle  when  they  had  themselves  to  stand  on 
their  own  defence.  As  their  Hellenic  antagonists  approached 
(Plutarch,  taking  his  figures  from  the  collective  and  conjec- 
tural muster-roll  of  Herodotus,  quotes  them  as  50,000), 
Aristides  advanced  in  front  and  appealed  to  them  in  the  name 
of  their  common  gods  to  abstain  from  battle  and  offer  no 
hindrance  to  men  who  were  on  their  way  to  the  rescue  of 
Greeks.  In  effect  it  was  only  the  Boeotians  who  fought 
with  zeal  and  resolution  on  the  side  of  Persia  against  Greece ; 
they  held  the  Athenians  in  check  for  a  considerable  time, 
while  the  rest  kept  off  entirely  or  were  slack,  and  when 
signs  were  visible  of  the  discomfiture  of  the  Persians,  with- 
drew entirely.  The  Thebans  however,  conscious  that  they 
were  fighting  for  life  or  death,  had  been  too  deeply  com- 
mitted to  give  up  so  easily.  Plutarch,  as  a  Boeotian,  naturally 
pleads  that  only  an  oligarchical  faction  then  in  power  was 
traitor  to  Greece,  and  not  the  nation.  Three  hundred  of 
their  first  and  2best — their  aristocracy,  the  very  sinews 
of  this  faction — fell  before  the  Athenians,  and  then  the 
Thebans  turned  and  fled  to  gain  the  protection  of  their 
city  walls.  The  contagion  of  terror  had  spread  from  the 
scene  of  confusion  that  was  now  visible  all  down  the  eastern 
valley  and  across  the  Asopus.  Not  only  were  the  remoter 
Persians  in  flight,  but  all  the  mingled  nations  of  the  centre 
which  had  come  on  in  disorder  were  crowding  back  in  double 
confusion  without  having  delivered  a  blow,  to  seek  the  refuge 

1  Herod,  ix.  66.  2  Ib.  ix.  67. 


94  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  the  entrenched  and  palisaded  camp.  The  flying  Thebans 
received  considerable  protection  from  their  own  and  the 
Thessalian  cavalry,  which,  though  unable  to  rally  them  so 
as  to  make  any  independent  stand  of  their  own,  interposed  be- 
tween them  and  the  Athenians  and  brought  them  off  with  less 
comparative  loss.  But  the  victors  of  the  subjects  of  Xerxes 
had  freer  play,  and  followed  slaughtering  the  helpless  and 
bewildered  fugitives. 

If  any  Persian  bethought  him  in  his  terror  of  the  help  that 
might  come  from  the  40,000  men  of  Artabazus,  he  looked  for 
him  in  vain.  Artabazus  had  anticipated  the  catastrophe  with 
the  cynical  sagacity  of  a  man  who  has  both  the  will  and  the 
power  to  promote  the  conclusion  that  he  prophesies.  He 
had  carefully  preserved  his  own  command  and  his  own 
adherents  from  the  impulsive  onset  of  Mardonius.  Mar- 
shalling them  accurately,  he  led  them  forth  as  if  for  the 
battle,  giving  them  a  warning  which  would  prepare  them 
for  some  sudden  turn  (well  acquainted  as  they  were  with 
his  general  discontent,  and  even  apart  from  more  explicit 
confidence  as  to  his  purpose),  instructing  them  to  be  watchful 
of  his  personal  movements,  and  so  soon  as  he  was  seen  to 
make  a  direct  start,  to  follow  in  whatever  direction  it 
might  be  without  hesitation.  He  was  still  only  sluggishly 
on  his  way  towards  the  battle-field,  when  unequivocal  signs 
of  defeat  were  apparent ;  he  instantly  wheeled  about,  the 
entire  force  following  implicitly,  neither  to  the  Persian  fort 
nor  the  Theban  citadel,  but  to  the  well-known  and  well- 
travelled  road  to  Phocis  that  marked  a  destination  for  the 
Hellespont. 

The  Greeks  had  also  fought  without  aid  from  one  large 
section  of  their  forces,  and  these  were  now  to  be  accounted 
for  with  varied  fortune,  some  37,000  out  of  107,000.  If  not 
the  din  of  battle,  the  flight  of  stragglers  might  suffice,  perhaps 
even  without  messengers,  to  apprise  the  camp  at  the  Heraeum 
of  what  was  going  on  ;  but  the  endeavour  to  repair  the  error 


v.]  THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  95 

of  their  distant  retirement  was,  from  whatever  cause,  not 
made  before  the  news  of  victory  arrived.  The  Corinthians  and 
those  next  to  them — counted  up  from  the  muster  as  22,600, 
over  three-fifths  of  the  whole — hastened,  in  no  proper  order, 
along  the  hills  and  undercliff  direct  to  the  Demetrium;  the 
remaining  two-fifths,  from  the  Phliasians  to  the  Megarians, 
about  14,600,  took  the  lower  ground  towards  the  scene  of 
conflict  of  the  Athenians,  and  equally  without  precautionary 
order.  Here  however  they  were  caught  sight  of  in  their 
defenceless  disarray  by  the  unbroken  Theban  horse  under 
Asopodorus  son  of  Timander,  who  charged  them  and  pur- 
sued them  into  the  mountains,  with  the  loss  of  600  slain, 
without  reason  or  result  in  any  way. 

The  defeated  Persians  and  the  panic-stricken  mob  were 
already  in  large  numbers  within  the  palisaded  fort,  and,  not- 
withstanding their  confusion,  were  employed  in  manning 
the  towers  and  strengthening  its  openings  (which  must  have 
been  left  of  considerable  amplitude  to  admit  of  so  speedy 
a  reception  under  such  circumstances)  before  it  could  be 
reached  by  the  heavy-armed  Lacedaemonians.  A  stubborn 
battle  at  the  walls  (teichomachia)  now  commenced,  in  which 
the  Spartans,  little  practised  in  fighting  either  against  walls 
or  behind  them,  had  decidedly  the  worst.  They  were  soon 
joined  by  the  more  expert  Athenians,  who,  apprised  by  a  mes- 
senger of  the  state  of  things  before  the  fort,  willingly  left 
their  Hellenic  enemies,  covered  as  they  were  in  retreat,  to 
make  their  way  to  Thebes.  A  stout  contest  from  the  wall 
still  continued  for  some  time,  but  at  last  the  Athenians,  by 
combined  valour  and  pertinacity,  established  themselves  on  it, 
and  effected  an  opening  through  which  the  Greeks — the 
Tegeans  again  leading — poured  in  a  flood.  The  barrier  once 
down,  there  was  an  end  among  the  defenders  alike  of  orderly 
array  and  of  any  further  exhibition  of  valour.  The  mere 
crowding  of  intermingled  tribes  and  arms  was  enough  to 
extinguish  discipline  and  to  disable  its  operation  if  it  existed, 


96  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

while  disaster  upon  disaster  and  the  loss  and  disappearance 
of  chiefs  demoralised  even  the  best.  The  fort  became  a 
slaughter-house,  and  a  carnage  ensued  which  even  the 
entertainments  presided  over  with  satisfaction  by  modern 
princes  and  generals  after  centuries  of  improvement  in  the 
means  of  human  destruction  can  scarcely  hope  to  rival. 

The  spirit  of  vengeance  for  past  sufferings  was  reinforced 
by  a  sense  of  the  danger  to  be  incurred  by  sparing  any  con- 
siderable proportion  of  such  a  multitude  of  enemies  ;  Pausanias 
forbade  taking  prisoners,  and  neither  supplications  nor  pro- 
mises of  ransom  stayed  the  hands  of  Athenians  and  Lace- 
daemonians, who  emulated  each  other  in  the  now  merely 
laborious  work  of  massacre.  Penned  up  within  the  lines 
which  they  had  toiled  at  as  a  refuge  and  protection,  the 
wretched  tribes  of  men,  swept  together  from  all  parts  of 
a  vast  continent  to  subserve  without  option  the  imperial 
greed  of  a  despot  and  the  military  pride  of  his  satraps,  were 
killed  in  heaps  like  cattle,  and  piled  in  blood  amongst  the 
splendid  tents,  costly  fittings,  and  the  other  apparatus  of  the 
pomp  and  luxury  of  their  leaders. 

Out  of  the  enormous  Persian  army,  which  he  sets  down  in 
round  numbers  at  300,000,  Herodotus  avers  that  besides  the 
40,000  who  fled  with  Artabazus,  only  3,000  were  left  alive. 

On  the  side  of  the  Greeks  he  only  enumerates  as  killed  : — 
Spartiat  Lacedaemonians         91  out  of  5,000 
Tegeans  16      „      1,500 

Athenians  52      „      8,000. 

The  last  are  said  to  have  all  belonged  to  the  single  tribe 
Aiantis. 

The  losses  of  the  heavy-armed  Lacedaemonians — the  5,000 
perioeci  who  were  engaged,  unless  possibly  comprised  in 
the  compendious  term  Spartiats,  —  and  of  the  Plataean 
600,  are  left  unspecified  here,  and  perhaps  went  to  swell 
the  total  Greek  loss,  given  by  Plutarch  at  1,360.  It 
may  be  a  question  whether  even  this  reckoning  includes 


vi.]          THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.  97 

the  helots.  The  Spartiats,  and  the  Tegeans  who  fought 
with  them,  are  thus  seen  to  have  suffered  much  more  heavily 
in  proportion  than  the  Athenians.  In  comparing  the  rela- 
tive losses  of  opponents  in  ancient  battles  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  victors  had  always  a  large  number  of 
unenumerated  wounded ;  while  of  the  vanquished,  the 
wounded  for  the  most  part,  and  often  even  the  captives 
when  barbarians  were  in  question,  were  counted  among  the 
slain.  Any  reservation  of  prisoners  was  quite  exceptional, 
and  made  only  with  a  view  to  ransom,  hostages,  or  sale  as 
slaves. 

The  entrenchment  had  been  encumbered,  necessarily  and 
unnecessarily,  with  non-combatant  followers — purveyors  of 
supplies,  attendant  slaves,  and  women  of  all  degrees,  from  the 
favourites  of  the  luxurious  nobles  downwards ;  and  these 
probably  constituted  the  majority  of  the  spared.  Herodotus 
describes  one  scene,  which  may  serve  to  represent  the  aspect 
of  mingled  horrors  and  splendours,  the  rescues,  recogni- 
tions, and  coincident  adventures  that  are  implied  by  such 
occasions. 

While  Pausanias  was  in  the  midst  of  urging  and  direct- 
ing the  slaughter,  a  woman,  in  the  richest  Persian  ornaments 
and  attire,  threw  herself  at  his  feet  and  clasped  his  knees, 
claiming  rescue,  as  a  Greek,  from  Persian  servitude.  She 
declared  that  she  was  by  birth  a  Coan,  daughter  of  Hege- 
torides  son  of  Antagoras,  and  had  been  forcibly  carried  off 
by  the  Persian  Pharandates  son  of  Teaspis ;  an  example  of 
a  very  extensive  class  of  the  miseries  inflicted  by  the 
barbarian  domination  on  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor  and 
the  islands,  from  which  this  victory  alone  had  rescued  the 
Greeks  of  Europe.  In  the  Spartan  commander  she  was 
now  addressing  a  host  of  her  father's  ;  he  committed  her  at 
once  to  the  care  of  some  of  the  ephors,  and  dismissed  her 
afterwards  at  her  desire  to  Aegina,  in  possession  of  all  her 
dignified  appointments  and  ornaments.  The  deliberate  state 


98  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

in  which  Herodotus  represents  her  as  arriving  in  a  closed 
armamaxa,  or  covered  chariot,  with  her  gaudy  attendants, 
seems  inconsistent  with  the  moment,  and  if  the  picture  is 
to  be  preserved,  must  rather  be  transferred  to  the  occasion 
of  her  departure.  Precisely  at  this  time,  when  all  barbarian 
resistance  was  at  an  end,  came  in  the  lagging  supports, 
first  of  the  Mantinaeans,  and  then  of  the  Eleians.  Their 
regret,  and  still  more  their  reproaches  against  their  com- 
manders, knew  no  bounds ;  to  them  they  ascribed  their 
non-participation  in  the  battle,  and  on  their  return  home 
visited  it  iipon  them  in  both  cases  by  exile.  The  Mantinaeans 
would  fain  have  obtained  yet  one  chance  of  service  by  pur- 
suing Artabazus  on  his  road  to  Thessaly,  but  even  this  was 
refused  them  by  Pausanias.  The  Corinthian  and  Sicyonian 
division, — Diodorus  says  the  Phliasians  l  also, — too  late  for 
the  battle,  were  sent  forward,  without  further  result  than 
ascertaining  that  the  retreat  was  remote  and  probably 
final. 

Artabazus  was  indeed  pushing  on  rapidly,  to  keep  ahead, 
if  possible,  even  of  the  never-resting  tongue  of  Rumour. 
He  told  the  Thessalians  that  he  was  called  to  Thrace  by 
matters  of  importance  necessitating  speed,  assured  them 
that  Mardonius  and  his  army  were  close  behind,  and  made 
a  great  point  of  the  attentions  it  would  be  prudent  to 
prepare  for  him.  He  then  passed  on  through  Macedonia 
by  the  indicated  road  for  Thrace.  Here  he  avoided  the 
coast  and  took  the  inland  roads,  his  numbers  dwindling 
as  he  passed  by  hunger,  by  fatigue,  and  by  the  hostility 
of  the  native  tribes  who  hung  about  his  march.  Herodotus 
is  silent  as  to  hostilities  against  the  fugitives  from  Plataea 
on  the  part  of  the  king  of  Macedonia,  of  which  we  have 
mention  by  2  Demosthenes.  Even  so  he  was  driven  to  make, 
not  for  the  nearer  Hellespont,  but  for  the  Thracian  Bosphorus, 

1  Diod.  xi.  32.  »  In  Aristoc.  687  ;  Epist.  Phil.  164. 


vi.]          THE  DECISIVE  BATTLE  OF  PLATAEA.          99 

which,  from  its  greater  remoteness  from  Greece  by  sea,  and 
the  strength  of  the  Persian  post  at  Byzantium,  was  more 
likely  to  yield  a  secure  passage.  He  will  reappear  in  the 
story  in  unimpaired  credit  with  Xerxes,  and,  for  the  Greeks, 
in  ill-omened  communication  with  Pausanias. 


H  2 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  SPOILS   OF   PLATAEA. — THE    GLORY   OP   PAUSANIAS. 
B.C.  479,  Autumn.     01.  75.  2. 

Ax  Plataea  the  Greeks  were  occupied  with  the  usual  sequel 
of  victory,  the  collection  and  solemn  interment  of  their  dead, 
and  the  distribution  of  honours  and  spoil  among  both  gods 
and  men.  By  proclamation  of  Pausanias  all  private  appropria- 
tion of  spoil  was  forbidden,  and  the  large  force  of  helots  was 
employed  to  gather  the  whole  together  from  the  camp  and 
field  of  battle.  The  worth  of  precious  metals  in  coined  money 
(darics),  personal  ornaments,  and  enrichments  of  weapons  and 
.camp  furniture,  in  the  vessels  and  table-services  that  were 
carried  about  in  such  an  expedition  by  the  Persians^  was 
enormous ;  among  the  baggage- waggons  gold  and  silver  plate 
was  found  in  l  sackfuls,  so  that  of  the  abundance  of  merely 
embroidered  vestments  which  would  at  any  other  time  have 
been  highly  valued,  no  account  whatever  was  taken.  An 
imputation  upon  the  Aeginetans  here  occurs,  which,  though 
possibly  heightened  by  the  historian's  prejudice,  still  in- 
dicates a  general  feeling  that  the  tone  of  Hellenic  thought 
had  become  vulgarised  among  these  more  purely  commercial 
islanders.  He  accuses  them  of  dealing  illicitly  with  the 
helots  for  treasure  that  should  have  been  brought  to 
the  common  fund,  and  even  ascribes  to  this  source,  if  we 
adopt  the  most  moderate  interpretation  of  his  language,  the 

1  Herod,  ix.  80. 


THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  101 

origin  of  the  largest  Aeginetan  fortunes.  The  district  of 
Plataea  gave  up  long  after  to  fortunate  finders  deposits  of 
plate  and  valuables  that  had  been  hidden  away  by  those  who 
never  had  a  chance  of  recovering  them,  and  the  Aeginetans 
bought  from  the  helots  sometimes  the  secret  of  such  stores,  and 
sometimes  the  purloined  objects  themselves, — armlets,  chains 
or  torques,  and  golden-hilted  scimetars  that  were  found  upon 
the  bodies  of  the  slain  enemy  all  over  the  field.  The  helots, 
fresh  from  their  secluded  servitude  at  Lacedaemon,  were  as 
ignorant  of  the  precious  metals  as  the  Swiss  when  they  rifled 
the  tents  and  stripped  the  bodies  of  the  Burgundians  at 
Granson,  and  were  glad  to  get  the  price  of  brass  for  objects 
of  gold  which  in  any  case  they  would  have  been  unable  to 
conceal  or  employ  to  any  purpose. 

A  still  more  shameful  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  Aeginetans 
against  the  victors  in  a  battle  in  which  they  themselves  had 
scarcely  taken  any  part,  was  the  suggestion  made  to  Pau- 
sanias  by  Lampon  son  of  Pytheus,  one  of  their  leading  men, 
a  member  of  a  family  distinguished  for  hereditary  prowess  in 
the  public  games,  and  a  participator  in  the  glory  of  ^ala- 
mis.  He  represented  that  the  predicted  penalty  to  be  re- 
covered from  Mardonius  still  lacked  completion ;  it  would  be 
exacted  in  full  and  the  glory  of  Pausanias  immensely  enhanced 
if  the  head  of  Mardonius  were  cut  off  and  exposed,  as 
Mardonius  and  Xerxes  had  done  with  the  remains  of  Leonidas. 
Pausanias  repudiated  the  suggestion  with  contemptuous  dig- 
nity ;  it  was  barbarian,  not  Hellenic,  in  spirit,  and  repugnant 
to  Lacedaemonians,  whatever  it  might  be  to  Aeginetans. 
Lampon  was  bidden  to  bring  no  more  advice,  and  might  be 
thankful  that  even  this  time  he  got  away  with  only  a  rebuke. 

By  next  day  the  body  of  Mardonius  was  missing — with- 
drawn for  burial,  it  was  assumed  ;  and  more  than  one  man 
afterwards  claimed  and  received  large  rewards  from  his  son 

1  Pind.  Isthm,  iv. 


102  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Artontes  for  the  service :  there  was  a  report  that  it  had  been 
really  performed  by  Dionysophanes,  an  Ephesian.  A  monu- 
ment— probably  a  barrow — on  the  right  of  the  road  from 
Eleutherae  to  Plataea,  immediately  after  the  junction  of  the 
road  to  l  Hysiae,  was  pointed  out  long  after  as  that  of 
Mardonius. 

And  now  again,  as  after  Salamis,  questions  arose  as  to 
the  assignment  of  chief  honours  among  the  nations  engaged. 
Some  of  the  Athenian  leaders,  Leocrates  and  Myronides  espe- 
cially, were  indisposed  to  concede  any  exclusive  distinction  to 
the  Spartans  for  all  their  exploits  and  leadership,  and  Aristides 
could  only  prevail  on  them  to  remit  the  apportionments  to  the 
assembled  Greeks.  In  the  end,  Athenians  and  Lacedaemo- 
nians each  erected  a  separate  trophy,  and  each  nation  honoured 
its  own  most  deserving  champions  without  drawing  compari- 
sons. 2  Pausanias  speaks  of  the  trophy  as  a  single  one,  and 
situated  about  fifteen  stadia  (a  mile  and  a  half)  beyond  the 
city,  towards  Thebes.  Here,  as  after  Salamis,  further  heart- 
burnings were  said  to  have  been  evaded  by  the  chief  rivals 
renouncing  their  claims,  at.  the  suggestion  of  Megarians  or 
Corinthians,  in  favour  of  an  inferior  power.  The  gods  and 
heroes  of  Plataea  had  been  specially  invoked,  and  in  con- 
sequence eighty  talents  (about  .€2,000)  were  set  aside  for 
the  Plataeans,  a  sum  which  defrayed  the  cost  of  a  temple 
to  Athene  Areia, — the  Martial, — and  of  the  paintings  which 
adorned  it,  and  which  remained  in  preservation  long  enough 
to  be  seen  by  Plutarch  and  described  by  Pausanias.  Hero- 
dotus however,  giving  voice  to  the  common  opinion  of  un- 
biassed Greeks,  after  the  generous  confession  that  among  their 
enemies  the  first  honours  were  due  to  the  Persian  foot  (the 
horse  of  the  Sakae),  and  among  individuals  to  Mardonius, 
declares  that  of  the  Greeks,  brave  men  as  the  Tegeans  and 
Athenians  had  approved  themselves,  the  palm  of  valour  belonged 
to  the  Lacedaemonians, — belonged  by  this  token,  that  though 
1  Paus.  ix.  a.  »  Ib.  ix.  a.  4. 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  103* 

all  alike  had  conquered  their  opponents,  the  Lacedaemonians 
had  assaulted  and  conquered  by  far  the  most  valiant.  He  had 
before  stated  his  opinion  that  the  one  seat  of  strength  in  the 
army  of  Mardonius  lay  in  the  ranks  of  the  native  Persians  of 
whom  he  was  so  proud.  In  place  of  Aristodemus,  whose  claims 
he  thought  were  wrongly  set  aside,  Poseidonius,  Philocyon, 
and  the  rigid  Spartiat  Amompharetus  were  preferred ;  and 
of  these  again  Poseidonius  was  chiefly  honoured, — honoured, 
while  Aristodemus  was  set  aside,  inasmuch  as  in  his  case  daring 
had  not  been  urged  by  contempt  of  the  life  he  put  in  peril. 
It  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  Greek  mind  that  Herodotus 
returns  to  Gallic-rates,  and  his  premature  death,  as  explaining 
how  it  was  that  a  man  so  beautiful  is  absent  from  the  list 
that  signalises  the  most  brave. 

Among  the  Athenians,  renown  distinguished  Sophanes  son 
of  Eutychides,  of  the  deme  of  Decelea;  the  man  of  whom  it 
came  to  be  told — a  valuable  example  of  how  fact  was  still 
liable  to  wander  away  through  metaphor  into  myth — that 
he  wore  in  battle  an  iron  anchor  or  grappling-iron  attached 
to  a  bronze  chain,  with  which  he  moored  himself  to  his 
station  till  his  enemies  were  in  flight,  when  he  took  it  up 
again  and  carried  it  on  in  the  pursuit.  '  So  the  story  goes  ;  but 
there  is  another  which  conflicts  with  it,  namely  that  the  anchor 
he  carried  was  not  formed  of  iron  and  hanging  to  his  corselet, 
but  a  painted  symbol  on  his  ever  restless  shield.'  Oppor- 
tunity is  taken  to  record  of  this  champion  of  Greek  liberty, 
how  at  the  siege  of  Aegina  by  the  Athenians,  when  Greeks 
and  Greeks,  now  allies,  were  in  conflict,  he  challenged  and 
killed  the  '  Argive  Eurybates,  a  Nemean  victor  in  the  l  pent- 
athlon,'— '  another  brilliant  exploit.' 

The  mention  of  the  Decelea,  as  the  deme  of  Sophanes,  is 
fortunate,  as  it  introduces  an  allusion  to  a  later  incident,  the 
invasion  of  Attica  by  2Archidamus,  and  so  informs  us  that 

1  Herod,  ix.  75 ;  Paus.  i.  29.  §  4.  2  Ol.  88.  2  =  BC.  431. 


*104  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Herodotus  was  finishing  his  history  after  that  date  ;  that  he 
was  in  fact  —  anachronism  as  it  seems  for  his  comparative 
genius  —  a  contemporary  with  Thucydides  at  the  age  of  40, 
and  with  Euripides  when  author  of  the  Medea  ;  —  so  near  to- 
gether in  Greece  was  all  that  was  archaic  and  most  modern. 

From  the  collected  spoil  a  tithe  was  then  reserved  for  the 
god  at  Delphi  ;  and  from  this  a  golden  tripod  was  dedicated, 
and  placed  on  a  three-headed  serpent  near  the  altar.  Pausa- 
nias  found  that  Phocian  sacrilege  had  taken  its  way  with  the 
tripod,  but  the  bronze  support  was  still  in  its  place.  Con- 
stantine  transferred  this  to  the  hippodrome  of  his  new  city, 
and  there  by  rare  clemency  of  fortune  it  stands  to  this  day 
inscribed  with  a  list  of  patriotic  cities.  It  bore  the  inscrip- 
tion :  — 

'EAXdSo*  tvpvxopov  aorrTJpfs  rovS*  dv((h]Kav, 
5ov\oavvi)t  arvytpas  pvadptvoi 


Further  reservation  was  made  for  a  bronze  statue  of  Poseidon, 
seven  cubits  high,  at  the  Isthmus,  and  for  another  of  Zeus, 
twelve  cubits  high,  at  Olympia.  Pausanias  the  traveller 
notes  of  the  latter,  apparently  merely  to  guide  the  curious, 
that  it  was  turned  towards  the  east,  and  he  copied  from 
its  base  the  catalogue  of  the  dedicating  cities  already  re- 
ferred to. 

Of  the  assignment  of  special  trophies  we  are  told  that 
the  Tegeans,  who  first  entered  the  entrenched  camp,  had 
among  other  things  from  the  quarters  of  Mardonius  an  elabo- 
rate manger  formed  entirely  of  bronze,  which  they  dedicated 
in  their  ancient  temple  of  Athene  Alea,  in  the  conflagration 
of  2  which  it  probably  3  perished. 

In  the  temple  of  Athene  Polias  at  Athens  was  long  after 
shown  the  corselet  of  Masistius  —  an  appropriate  Athenian 
prize,  —  and  a  scimitar  asserted  to  be  that  of  Mardonius,  the 
identity  of  which,  however,  is  reasonably  questioned  by 

1  Diod.  S.  xi.  33.  *  01.  96.  »  Paus.  viii.  45.  §  3. 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  105 

Pausanias,  who  refuses  to  believe  in  the  resignation  of  such 
a  trophy  by  the  1  Lacedaemonians. 

A  metrical  inscription  by  2  Simonides  for  a  bow  and  arrows 
dedicated  at  Athens,  recalls  the  specific  services  rendered  by 
that  weapon  at  Plataea  :  — 


To£o  ra.Se  irro\(fj.oio  Trt 

vrjw  'AOrjvairjs  Kfirai  iiiroppu<pia, 
•noXXaici  8i)  arov&tvra.  ttaroi  K\UVOV  \v  8cu  <j>onSiv 


The  general  distribution  concerned  a  miscellaneous  assem- 
blage of  booty,  such  as  '  concubines  of  the  Persians,  gold  and 
silver,  and  other  valuables  and  animals.'  Whether  the  precise 
principle  of  apportionment  with  reference  to  3  merit  was  deter- 
mined by  the  numbers  of  4  contingents  must  remain  uncertain, 
but  in  any  case  the  share  of  the  Lacedaemonians  could  not 
have  been  less  than  enormous.  Again,  we  are  left  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  disposal  of  this  share,  whether  as  public  or  private 
treasure,  in  a  polity  of  which  a  professed  fundamental  maxim 
was  to  discourage  and  ignore  accumulated  wealth  and  the 
luxuries  to  which  it  could  minister.  Apart  however  from  the 
laxities  that  creep  into  all  organisations  founded  on  the  basis 
of  asceticism,  a  populous  state,  of  the  influence  and  power  of 
Sparta,  could  never  dispense  with  the  command  of  some  consi- 
derable treasure  or  of  stored  wealth  in  some  form.  And  even 
ascetic  disciplinarians,  especially  when  at  the  head  of  a  system, 
can  always  find  opportunities  of  expensive  self-indulgence, 
which  by  some  means  are  brought  within  the  letter  of  the 
stern  code.  We  read  at  this  time  of  Spartans  of  great 
wealth  ;  and  others  will  speedily,  and  not  unfrequently,  come 
before  us  whose  common  weakness  is  greed  for  that  gold  of 
which  their  laws  forbade  almost  the  mention  ;  and  even  when 
we  look  back  to  the  reign  of  Darius,  we  find  that  if  Cleo- 
menes  repudiated  the  invitations  of  Aristagoras  to  aid  an 

1  Paus.  i.  27.  §  i.  2  Sim.  200. 

3  Herod,  ix.  81.  «  Diod.  S.  xi.  33. 


106  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Ionian  revolt,  it  was  for  other  reasons,  and  not  because  he 
was  shocked  at  having  it  held  out  as  a  temptation  that  the 
capture  of  Susa  was  quite  within  possibility, — Susa,  the 
treasure-house  of  the  Great  King,  by  acquiring  which  he 
might  confidently  rival  Ionia  in  l  riches.  The  promise  of 
Aristagoras  might  now  seem  to  the  Spartans  to  have  come 
to  pass;  general,  ephors  and  Spartiats,  perioeci  and  helots, 
might  all  look  round  as  if  a  new  world  had  opened  upon 
them ;  and  men  of  the  stubborn  antique  stamp  of  a  Leonidas 
or  an  Amompharetus  were  blind  if  they  had  not  some  mis- 
trust of  the  working  of  this  sight  upon  all  classes  of  visitors 
from  the  Eurotas,  from  the  helots  who  had  loyally  contributed 
to  the  capture,  and  yet  were  only  to  share  in  it  dangerously 
and  by  stealth,  to  the  Regent  himself  on  whom  they  were 
lavished  so  abundantly.  For  him  also,  as  if  next  after  the 
gods,  the  several  classes  of  spoil — '  women,  horses,  talents, 
camels,  and  all  the  other  wealth  of  whatever  kind ' —  were 
not  tithed  exactly,  but  put  under  contributions  expressed  by 
tens,  and  with  him  rested  of  necessity  the  disposal  of  whatever 
was  most  princely.  Mardonius,  though  himself  only  a  deputy, 
or  lieutenant,  had  remained  in  possession  of  all  the  splen- 
didly appointed  establishment  of  the  fugitive  King,  and  while 
Pausanias  gazed  on  the  vessels  and  furniture  of  gold  and 
silver,  the  luxuriously  covered  couches  and  embroidered  cur- 
tains, a  thought  occurred  to  him  of  a  contrast  that  should 
give  zest  to  his  elation  in  victory.  He  summoned  the  Greek 
generals  to  a  feast  in  the  royal  tent  itself,  which  they 
found  set  out  and  prepared  in  every  detail  by  the  Persian's 
own  train  of  confectioners  and  cooks,  as  if  Mardonius  were 
still  alive;  and  beside  it  he  pointed  with  laughter  to  a  sj'iirc 
Laconian  dinner  that  had  been  prepared  in  the  usual  order  by 
his  own  servants  for  himself,  exclaiming  with  derisive  scorn, 
'  Ye  men  of  Hellas,  I  have  brought  you  together  for  precisely 

1  Herod,  v.  49. 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  107 

this, — to  exhibit  to  you  the  folly  of  the  Median  general, 
who  having  enjoyment  of  all  this  splendour,  came  here 
to  plunder  an  existence  so  wretched  as  ours.'  The  turn 
of  the  moral  is  the  same  that  is  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Caractacus  by  a  Roman  writer,  and  of  the  hardy  Swiss  by 
1  Philip  de  Comines ;  but  in  this  case  it  strikes  upon  the 
ear  as  involving  an  appreciation  of  the  more  luxurious  'fare, 
when  obtainable,  that  has  scarcely  the  true  Laconian  ring. 

The  traveller  Pausanias  mentions  finding  the  tombs  of  the 
Greeks  very  near  the  entrance  to  the  city  of  Plataea  as  he 
came  in  from  Attica,  inscribed  with  the  epitaphs  of  Simonides ; 
the  Athenians  and  Lacedaemonians  having  each  their  burial- 
place,  and  the  rest  of  the  Greeks  a  third.  The  Lacedae- 
monians made  a  triple  division  of  their  dead ;  commanders  of 
companies — among  whom  were  Poseidonius,  Amompharetus, 
Philocyon,  and  Callicrates — occupied  one  depository,  the  rest 
of  the  Spartiats  another,  the  helots  a  2  third.  But  besides 
these  veritable  tombs,  Herodotus  avers  that  certain  fictitious 
ones,  fraudulent  cenotaphs,  had  been  afterwards  raised  by 
other  cities  anxious  to  assert  their  participation  in  the  vic- 
tory. One  mound  especially  he  charges  with  having  been 
raised  for  Aeginetans — in  disgrace  again — some  ten  years 
afterwards  by  a  friendly  Plataean  whom  he  names.  Nothing 
is  said  of  the  burial  of  the  enemies ;  and  indeed  a  notice  that 
the  Plataeans  found  one  skull  without  sutures — a  case  not  un- 
known to  modern  physiology — when  they  gathered  the  bones 
together  into  one  place,  appears  to  imply  that  many  at  least 
were  left  above  3  ground  through  autumn  and  winter. 

It  still  remained  to  deal  with  Thebes.  But  even  before 
doing  so  it  was  incumbent  to  offer  appropriate  sacrifices  for 
the  great  deliverance,  and  on  this  point  guidance  was  solicited 
from  the  god  at  Pytho.  The  oracle  enjoined  the  immediate 
erection  of  an  altar  to  Zeus  Eleutheiius  (the  Liberator),  but 

1   Mem.  v.  i.  "  Herod,  ix.  85.  3  Ib.  ix.  83. 


108  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

forbade  them  to  offer  a  sacrifice  upon  it  until  all  fire  had 
been  quenched  throughout  the  Plataean  district,  as  having 
been  polluted  by  the  sacrilegious  barbarians,  and  re-lighted 
pure  from  the  common  hearth  at  Delphi.  The  Greek  officials 
immediately  made  a  general  visitation,  and  caused  all  fire 
to  be  extinguished,  and  a  certain  Euchidas  left  the  city, 
engaging  to  bring  back  fire  from  the  god  with  the  utmost 
possible  speed.  Arrived  and  forthwith  purified  at  Delphi, 
and  duly  besprinkled  and  crowned  with  the  sacred  laurel,  he 
took  fire  from  the  altar  there,  started  again  to  race  homeward 
to  Plataea,  and  came  in  before  sunset,  having  accomplished 
the  double  journey,  so  the  story  goes,  within  the  day.  He 
greeted  the  expectant  citizens,  delivered  over  the  fire,  and  at 
once  sank  down  exhausted,  and  died  on  the  spot.  The  Pla- 
taeans  took  him  up  and  buried  him  in  the  sacred  precinct  of 
Artemis  Eucleia,  inscribing  on  the  tomb  the  following  tetra- 
meter — 


'  Eucbidas  running  hence  to  Pytho  here  returned  the  self-same  day.' 

The  full  distance  of  one  thousand  stadia  —  115  miles  —  obliges 
us  to  assign  a  very  large  interpretation  to  the  '  single  day  '  of 
the  tale  and  the  inscription. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  confederates  readily  extended  to 
something  more  than  the  present  occasional  sacrifice.  It  was 
resolved,  on  the  proposal  of  Aristides,  that  the  celebration 
should  be  annual,  and  that  every  fourth  year  —  a  pentaeteris  — 
there  should  be  a  celebration  of  Eleutherian  games,  in  the 
presence  of  such  sacred  missions  from  general  Hellas  as  the 
various  cities  were  wont  to  despatch  to  represent  them  at  the 
great  common  festivals,  and  perhaps  of  envoys  (7rpo/3ovAot)  for 
political  deliberation.  To  the  Plataeans  was  to  be  committed 
the  function  of  offering  sacrifices  on  the  part  and  for  the 
safety  of  Hellas,  as  well  as  performing  the  annual  rites  at  the 
graves  of  the  dead  ;  and  in  return,  and  as  security  for  these 
institutions,  they  were  to  be  declared  inviolable  and  conse- 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  109 

crated  to  the  god.  The  Plataeans  thus  obtained  at  least  a 
nominal  guarantee  from  Greece  at  large  for  the  extension  of 
their  territory  to  the  limits  of  Hysiae  and  the  Asopus,  which 
had  been  wrested  for  them  from  Thebes  by  the  Athenians  in 
1  B.C.  519.  The  parallel  between  the  arrangements  which  the 
Greeks  attempted  to  establish  here  and  the  sacred  immunity  of 
Elis  and  the  participation  of  all  Hellas  in  its  games  is  mani- 
fest ;  yet  the  suggesting  influences  are  so  natural  that  we  may 
less  reasonably  conclude  that  the  correspondence  is  due  to  mere 
rivalry  or  mimicry,  than  carry  back  the  analogy,  and  infer  that 
the  elevation  of  the  Olympic  games  and  territory  to  their 
distinction  was  originally  due  to  like  combinations  of  events — 
to  the  enthusiasm  of  a  confederacy  at  some  great  conquest 
which  was  connected  with  the  seat  of  the  festival  in  origin, 
conduct,  or  conclusion. 

These  generous  resolutions,  made  in  the  first  heat  of  sym- 
pathy, proved  of  but  insignificant  or  evanescent  advantage  for 
Plataea.  The  site  was  unfavourable,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
Greek  calendar  being  already  well  covered  by  festivals  and 
games  which  could  not  be  superseded  ;  and,  as  time  went 
on,  the  growth  in  popularity  of  the  new  institution  was  liable 
to  be  checked  by  the  very  intimate  attachment  of  Plataea 
to  Athens.  Plataea  had  placed  itself  under  the  protection 
of  Athens  as  early  as  B.C.  519,  at  the  recommendation 
of  Lacedaemonians — as  Herodotus  thought,  out  of  no  good 
will  to  either;  and  the  loyal  city  had  approved  the  spirit 
and  value  of  its  alliance  at  Marathon  as  well  as  in  this  later 
war.  It  might  even  seem  surprising  that  privileges  should 
now  be  conceded  so  readily  which  could  scarcely  but  redound 
to  the  advantage  of  the  protecting  state,  whose  aspirations 
were  so  well  known:  but  Athens  was  not  then  in  a  con- 
dition to  excite  alarm  at  a  spirit  of  encroachment ;  patriotic 
enthusiasm  was  blinding  all  but  politicians  of  the  most 
special  type  to  the  still  living  germs  of  internal  dissensions 

1  Herod,  vi.  108. 


110  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

and  rivalries ;  and,  above  all,  the  common  animosity  of  the 
patriotic  Greek  army  against  the  especial  enemies  of  Plataea, 
the  Medising  Thebans,  still  contumacious  within  the  walls 
which  had  served  the  Mede  as  the  fortified  base  of  his  most 
dangerous  and  hardly  frustrated  enterprise,  would  cause  a 
proposition  so  appropriately  honouring  the  patriotic  rival  to 
be  carried  by  acclamation. 

A  further  resolution,  also  it  is  ]  said  on  the  motion  of 
Aristides,  had  reference  to  a  future  Hellenic  muster  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war ;  the  numbers  to  be  raised  are  given 
as  io,oco  shields  (that  is  hoplites),  with  a  like  number  at 
least,  we  must  infer,  of  light-armed  men;  1,000  horses,  to 
supply  the  want  so  grievously  experienced  in  the  late  battle, 
and  100  ships.  It  is  probable  that  these  forces  are  to  be 
considered  exclusive  of  the  power  of  the  Spartans,  to  whom 
as  directors  of  the  whole  it  would  be  left  to  decide  on  the 
application  of  their  own  resources,  as  well  as  to  dispose  of  the 
contingents  of  the  allies. 

On  the  eleventh  day  after  the  victory  at  Plataea  the 
Thebans  were  summoned  to  surrender  the  members  of  the 
Medising  faction,  and  especially  Timegenidas  and  Attaginus, 
— the  leaders  of  the  leaders, —  with  the  notice  that  the 
army  would  not  remove  from  before  the  city  till  the  de- 
mand was  complied  with.  Refusal  was  followed  up  by  the 
usual  measures  taken  to  reduce  a  fortified  city  in  Greece; 
attacks  were  made  upon  the  walls,  but  the  main  reliance  was 
placed  on  the  exclusion  of  supplies  by  investment,  and  on  the 
openly  expressed  intention  to  damage  the  territory  to  such  an 
extent  that  surrender  would  involve  a  less  sacrifice.  On  the 
twentieth  day  a  herald  announced  to  Pausanias  that  the  Thebans 
were  prepared  to  give  up  the  men  demanded.  The  traveller 
"  Pausanias  in  Roman  times  is  as  positive  as  the  Boeotian 
Plutarch  that  the  crime  of  Medium  lay  exclusively  with  an 

1  Plut.  Aritt.  ai.  a  Paus.  x.  6.  §  i. 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLA TAEA.  ill 

oligarchy.     Had  Xerxes  invaded  Greece,  he  says,  when  the 
Peisistratids  ruled,  the  Athenians  themselves  would  have  been 
open  to  the  same  charge.      There  is  probably  much   truth' 
in  this — certainly  some ;   and  at  any  rate,  an  anti-Medising 
faction  was  sure  to  be  born,  if  not  to  revive,  on  the  failure 
of  the  earlier  policy.     The  oligarchs  had  made  the  best  terms 
they  could,  weakened  as  were  their  ranks  by  the  slaughter  of 
so  many  of  their  class  by  the  Athenians  in  the  battle ;  and 
Timegenidas  made  a  patriotic  virtue  of  the  necessity  of  saving 
Boeotia  from  further  ravage,  and  the  city  from  capture.     A 
futile  attempt  to  induce  the  captors  of  Persian  treasures  to 
be  put  off  with  a  money  ransom  having  failed,  the  utmost 
that  could  be  done  was  to  appeal  for  such  subventions  from 
the  funds  of  the  public — '  that  public  which   had  in  truth 
gone  along  with  their  policy ' — as  would  when  applied  in 
bribery    shrewdly    help    what    they   proposed    to    urge    in 
their  defence.     Everything  was  done  to  give  the  surrender 
the  air  of  being  the  voluntary  act  of  Timegenidas  and  the 
rest,  and   they  were  not  without  confidence   that   between 
argument   and   corruption   they  might  come   safe   through. 
Attaginus,  less  sanguine  or  more  fortunate,  made  his  escape 
in  time.     His  children  were  given  up  in  his  place,  but  sent 
back  by  Pausanias  with  the  remark,  in  the  spirit  of  his  reply 
to  Lampon,  that  '  Medism  was  not  a  child's  fault.'     Divining 
the  calculations  of  the  rest,  he  was  no  sooner  in  possession  of 
them  than  he  cut  off  all  opportunity  of  intrigues  by  imme- 
diately dismissing  the  confederate  forces  home  ;    and  then, 
carrying  the  prisoners  off  with  him  to  the  Isthmus,  he  put 
them  all  to  death  by  his  own  authority. 

Fifty-two  years  after  this  common  triumph  of  Greece 
the  city  of  the  Plataeans  was  besieged  and  subverted  by 
Greeks — by  Lacedaemonians,  at  the  commencement  of  that 
intestine  quarrel  which  was  to  be  the  ruin  of  so  much  that 
was  best  in  Hellas  (427  B.C.).  Restored  again  (386  B.C.), 
they  were  again  expelled  (374  B.C.),  to  await  a  final  restoration 


112  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

(315  B.C.)  two  generations  later;  and  yet,  through  all  the 
tenacity  of  tradition  and  of  race,  this  brave  people  carried  over 
no  insignificant  traces  of  the  institutions  which  had  been 
intended  to  inaugurate  a  period  of  Hellenic  unity,  from  the 
field  where  the  blood  of  many  tribes  had  been  shed  for  one 
common  Hellenic  interest  and  hope.  Plutarch  of  Chaeronea, 
who  was  probably  an  eye-witness,  thus  describes  the  ceremony 
with  which  the  Plataeans  of  his  day  fulfilled  the  engagements 
of  their  ancestors  at  the  tombs  of  the  slain  :— 

'  On  the  1 6th  of  the  month  Maimacterion, — Alalcomeneis 
of  the  Boeotians, — the  procession  is  marshalled  at  break  of  day. 
A  trumpeter  precedes  sounding  notes  of  war ;  cars  follow 
laden  with  branches  of  myrtle  and  crowns,  and  with  them 
a  black  bull ;  and  young  men  of  free  condition  carry  amphorae 
of  wine  and  milk  for  the  libations,  and  vessels  of  oil  and 
perfumed  ointments  ;  no  slave  is  permitted  to  give  any 
assistance  in  the  service  which  is  being  paid  to  men  who  died 
for  freedom.  Last  of  all  comes  the  archon  of  the  Plataeans, 
who,  forbidden  at  other  times  to  wear  any  colour  but  white 
and  even  to  touch  iron,  is  now  arrayed  in  purple  chiton  and 
girt  with  a  sword,  as,  holding  a  hydria  taken  from  the  public 
record  office,  he  traverses  the  city  on  his  way  to  the  tombs.- 
He  then  takes  water  from  the  fountain  and  washes  the  monu- 
ments, and  anoints  them  ;  and  after  sacrificing  the  bull  on  the 
pyraand  praying  to  Zeus  and  Hermes  Chthonios,  he  invites 
the  brave  men  who  died  for  Greece  to  the  banquet  and  the 
blood ;  and  mixing  wine  in  a  crater,  pours  it  on  the  ground, 
exclaiming,  "  I  drink  to  the  men  who  died  for  the  liberty 
of  the  »  Greeks."  ' 

2Thucydides  adds,  'honouring  the  tombs  —  larOijuaoiv  — 
with  robes ; '  the  equivalents  probably  of  the  black  scarves 
and  fillets  which  we  see  attached  to  tombs  on  vases.  The 
altar  and  statue  of  Zeus  Eleutherius,  both  of  white  marble, 

1  Plut.  Arietidet,  ai.  J  Tbucyd.  iii.  58. 


vii.]  THE  SPOILS  OF  PLATAEA.  113 

were  erected  just  without  the  city  of  Plataea,  near  the  bronze 
monument  over  the  slain  of  various  tribes.  In  Roman  times 
as  late  as  1Pausanias  the  Eleutherian  games  were  still  held 
here  on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle,  the  fourth  day  of  the 
Attic  month  Boedromion.  The  chief  prize — a  crown  or  chaplet, 
for  it  was  an  2  aya>v  ore^az^rr/s — was  given  for  the  race  in 
armour,  for  which  the  altar  was  the  starting-point. 

1  Pans.  ix.  a.  §  4.  a  Strabo,  412. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE    BATTLE    OF   MYCALE. — THE    FINAL    RETIREMENT  OF  XERXES. 
479  B.C.  ;  Ol.  75.  i.  and  2. 

THE  battle  of  Plataea  was  truly  one  of  the  decisive  battles 

of  tbe  world  ;  the  victory  was  not  only  decisive  in  the  sense 

that  it  left  the  worsted  army  disorganised  and  ruined  beyond 

all  possibility  of  rally,  but  that  it  precluded  for  all  time  any 

renewed  attempt  by  Persia  to  subjugate  continental  Greece. 

Upon  this  field  was  jeopardied  and  saved,  if  not  the  last  and 

single  chance  of  the  survival  of  progressive  civilisation,  much 

at  least  of  the  prompt  development  of  all  its  best  characteristics ; 

the  ripened  display,  within  the  next  fifty  years  of  Hellenic 

independence,  of  that  healthy  and  hopeful  manhood  of  the 

race  that  had  been  maturing  through  centuries,  to  be  staked 

at  last  on  the  turn  of  one  day  of  conflict.     It  would  be  rash 

to  infer  that  the  germ  of  Hellenic  genius  would  necessarily 

have  been  lost  to  the  world,  though  Oriental  domination  had 

oppressed  or  even  exterminated    Hellenism  at  Athens  and 

Sparta ;  but  to  the  happier  result  it  is  at  least  due  that  the 

world  inherits  a  history,  a  literature,  and  art  through  which 

Hellenic  genius  remains  so  prime  an  influence  for  instruction 

and  delight,  for  refinement  and  dignity  in  art  and  manners, 

for   guidance  in  administration  of  the  intellectual   powers, 

for  elevation  of  purpose,  to  noblest  patriotism,  and  largest 

theory  of  humanity.    A  story  opens  before  us  which  assuredly 

is  not  free  from   many  a   discouraging  incident;    our   best 

hopes    are    indeed    disappointed    at    every    turn ;    but    the 


THE  RESULTS  OF  PLATAEA.  115 

warnings,  if  we  fairly  read  them,  take  an  important  place  in 
the  moral.  The  vices  aud  errors  of  the  Greek  communities 
keep  our  eyes  open  to  the  imperfections  which  may  intrude 
among  virtues,  that  most  approve  themselves  to  be  virtues 
when  found  strong  enough  to  encourage  humanity,  for  all  its 
shortcomings  and  difficulties,  not  to  despair. 

All  the  importance  of  the  victory  could  not  however  be 
seen  at  the  moment.  To  many  a  Greek  the  power  and 
wealth  of  the  Great  King  could  never  have  been  realised 
so  formidably  as  in  sight  of  the  ruin  of  his  magnificent 
armament.  Here,  in  the  resources  which  he  had  forfeited, 
was  apparent  evidence  of  what  he  might  still  have  in  reserve ; 
the  magnitude  of  the  danger  that  had  been  escaped,  but  only 
just  escaped,  was  brought  home  to  the  senses  amid  the 
blood-stained  spoil  of  the  vast  camp,  with  a  liveliness  that 
could  not  but  have  some  effect  on  future  apprehensions, 
while  it  strengthened  resolution  for  the  future.  Self-confi- 
dence rose  in  more  than  equal  proportion ;  the  victory  that 
had  shattered  the  aggressive  power  and  spirit  of  Persia 
animated  the  Greeks  to  prepare  themselves  against  a  revival 
of  aggression,  and  strengthened  a  decision  which  had  before 
been  halting,  to  take  securities  against,  it  with  all  the  power 
of  settled  concord  and  alliance. 

For  although  the  host  that,  whether  as  ally  or  enemy,  had 
devoured  the  plains  of  Thessaly,  Boeotia,  and  Attica,  might 
be  assumed  as  accounted  for,  yet  the  hold  of  the  Persians  on 
their  established  conquests  in  Thrace ;  their  command  of  the 
Hellespont,  whether  for  reinforcements  or  interruption  of  the 
Euxine  trade ;  and  the  strength  and  designs  of  their  fleet, 
with  all  Ionia  and  Phoenicia  to  recruit  from,  were  considera- 
tions of  sufficient  weight  to  give  spirit  to  those  in  the  Plataean 
council  who  advocated  continued  exertions  and  hearty  adhe- 
rence to  the  new-found  value  of  confederation.  The  failure  of 
Darius  at  Marathon  had  not  deterred  Xerxes  from  a  second 
expedition,  but  had  rather  prompted  more  formidable  preparu- 


116  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

tion ;  and  the  defeat  at  Salamis  had  only  induced  the  enemy 
to  change  the  quarter  of  attack  with  a  pertinacity  that  might 
still  not  be  exhausted.  On  some  of  these  points  of  apprehen- 
sion the  victors  of  Plataea  were  soon  to  be  happily  relieved, 
for  on  the  very  same  day,  the  afternoon  of  the  day  which 
had  been  ushered  in  by  the  frantic  onset  of  Mardonius,  the 
Persian  fleet  was  finally  destroyed,  and  a  not  unimportant 
blow  delivered  even-  upon  their  army  in  Asia. 

The  commanders  of  the  Greek  fleet  had  of  necessity 
more  than  reciprocated  the  anxieties  that  Pausanias  and 
Aristides  might  have  had  time  to  feel  on  their  account. 
While  Mardonius  was  still  in  Thessaly  they  had  not 
moved  beyond  the  advanced  station  of  Delos,  from  whence 
they  could  more  readily  obtain  information  about  the  enemy's 
fleet  and  act  upon  it  with  greater  promptitude.  Of  their 
movements  when  the  re-occupation  of  Attica  drove  the 
Athenians  again  to  Salamis,  we  know  nothing  more  than  that 
the  mission  of  the  Athenian  admiral  Xanthippus  to  Sparta 
implies  that  the  Athenian  division,  as  might  be  expected, 
was  not  far  from  the  shores  of  Attica.  The  evacuation  of 
the  latter  country,  however,  soon  set  it  free. 

The  Persian  fleet  might  now  have  been  expected  to  move 
back  to  the  Hellespont,  or  still  more  probably  to  afford 
support  or  supplies  to  Mardonius ;  but  in  point  of  fact, 
besides  the  necessity  of  overawing  the  rising  agitations  in 
Ionia  and  the  islands,  the  Phoenician  mariners  had  not 
only  been  foiled  by  the  weather  on  the  unknown  western 
coasts,  but  had  forfeited  all  confidence  by  their  behaviour  at 
Salamis ;  their  commanders  were  consequently  discouraged 
from  attempting  even  short  voyages,  and  a  renewal  of  the 
conflict  seemed  more  hazardous  still.  Of  this  the  Greeks 
could  not  be  immediately  aware,  and  to  them  prepara- 
tion against  any  movement  on  the  part  of  the  Persian  fleet 
was  rightly  a  matter  of  most  anxious  interest.  Western 
Greece  could  only  be  secured  from  the  transport  of  aid  to 


VIIL]  THE  AGITATION  IN  IONIA.  117 

Mardonius,  or  diversions  in  other  directions,  by  complete 
command  of  the  sea,  and  the  time  was  at  hand  when  this 
was  to  be  actively  asserted.  The  year  was  already  far  ad- 
vanced, and  the  Greek  force  had  received  its  last  accession ;  the 
fleet  of  no  ships  all  told,  which  we  read  of  in  the  spring  as 
assembled  at  Aegina,  was  now  increased  to  1 250  triremes.  Of 
these  the  largest  portion  were  Athenian;  of  the  rest,  besides 
Lacedaemonians,  there  were  contingents  from  Corinth,  Sicyon, 
and  Troezene.  The  Corinthians  brought  in  addition  the  highly 
esteemed  contribution  of  the  soothsayer  Deiphonus  from  Apol- 
lonia,  their  colony  on  the  Ionian  gulf. 

It  was  already  autumn,  and  expectation  was  at  its  height 
for  news  of  the  conflict  in  Europe,  which  it  was  certain  could 
not  long  be  deferred,  when  Leotychides  and  the  generals  gave 
audience  at  Delos  to  three  envoys  who  had  left  Samos  un- 
known to  Theomestor  son  of  Androdamas,  whom  the  Persians 
had  established  there  as  tyrant  in  reward  for  his  services  at 
Salamis.  The  spokesman  was  Hegesistratus  son  of  Arista- 
goras,  who  set  forth  the  case  in  every  variety  of  aspect  and 
with  an  Ionian  fluency  which  might  perhaps  have  damaged 
his  cause  had  he  in  truth  been  the  sole  informant  (eXf  ye  7ro\Aa 
KOL  Travrola).  Appealing  to  their  sympathies  as  venerators  of 
common  gods,  he  supplicated  them  as  Greeks  to  come  to  the 
rescue  of  Greeks  and  assist  in  expelling  the  barbarian ; 
the  lonians  at  the  first  sight  of  them  would  rise  in  revolt, 
and  the  barbai'ians  would  as  instantly  retire,  or,  if  they  did 
not,  might  be  pounced  on  as  a  prey.  And  never  would  there 
be  another  such  chance  :  for  the  ships  of  the  enemy  were  ill- 
found,  wretched  sea-boats,  perfectly  ineffective  to  cope  with 
those  of  the  Greeks.  Never  could  an  exploit  be  more  easy 
or  more  certain  of  success.  He  added,  as  guarantee  of  the 
sincerity  of  the  advice,  that  the  envoys  were  ready  to  accom- 
pany the  expedition  as  hostages. 

The    Spartan  listened    to   the  long-drawn    pleadings   and 

1  DioJ.  xi.  34. 


118  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

beseechiugs  without  any  indication  that  he  accepted  the  in- 
formation as  correct,  or  that  he  sympathised  with  the  orator, 
and  then  interposed  abruptly,  '  And  what,  Samian  stranger ! 
is  your  name  ? '  Catching  up  the  reply  before  the  flow  of 
words  could  re-commence,  '  I  accept,  Hegesistratus,'  said  he, 
'  the  appellation  '  (i.  e.  conductor  or  leader  of  armies) ;  '  do  you 
only,  and  these  who  are  with  you,  take  order  to  pledge  your 
faith  before  you  sail  away  that  the  Samians  will  be  our  zealous 
allies.'  The  decision  thus  curtly  announced  with  true  Spartan 
affectation  of  suddenness  and  contempt  for  words,  was  as 
promptly  put  in  action.  The  Samians,  says  Herodotus,  took 
the  oath  and  engagement  of  alliance  with  the  Hellenes — 
that  is  with  the  Dorians,  whom  the  historian  seems  here 
again  to  distinguish  as  specifically  Hellenic,  in  contrast  to 
the  Pelasgic  Athenians  and  lonians.  The  other  two  envoys, 
Lampon  son  of  Thrasycles  and  Athenagoras  son  of  Archestra- 
tides,  were  dismissed  the  same  day ;  and  on  the  very  next,  the 
seer  Deiphonus,  son,  or  reputed  '  son,  of  the  prophetic  Euenius, 
having  announced  that  the  victims  were  favourable,  the  fleet 
put  to  sea  ;  Leotychides,  notwithstanding  his  rejection  of  the 
proposal  of  hostages,  keeping  by  him  Hegesistratus,  the  man 
with  the  name  of  good  omen,  a  hostage  in  reality  if  not  in 
2 name.  They  moored  at  Calamei  on  the  coast  of  Samos,  and 
there  made  preparations  for  battle.  The  exact  locality  is  un- 
certain ;  it  is  indicated  by  Herodotus  to  those  who  know  the 
spot  as  being  '  by  the  Heraeum,  or  temple  of  Here,  that  is 
in  that  place,' — terms  apparently  intended  to  distinguish  the 
temple  from  the  more  celebrated  Heraeum  in  or  close  to  the 
city  of  Samos.  A  more  remote  station,  perhaps  the  petty 
Tjmus,  where  Stephanus  Byzantinus  notes  a  temple  of  Here 
l|>Muiitis.  seems  to  be  implied  by  the  unperceived  and  un- 
molested retirement  of  the  Persian  fleet  through  the  narrow 
rhamu'l  1»  tun  n  Samos  and  the  continent. 

II •  -   i    ix.  95.  2  Ih.  ix.  92. 


VIIL]          ADVANCE  OF  THE  GREEK  FLEET.  119 

The  Persian  commanders  indeed  were  no  sooner  aware  of 
the  advance  of  the  Greeks  than,  as  the  envoys  had  predicted, 
they  gave  up  all  thought  of  contending  at  sea,  dismissed  the 
Phoenician  vessels  with  their  crews,  and  carried  the  others 
from  Samos  to  the  opposite  coast,  where  they  .could  draw 
them  ashore  and  have  the  protection  of  fortifications  and  a 
numerous  army.  They  passed,  says  Herodotus,  by  the  fane 
of  the  Potniae  of  Mycale  on  to  Gaeson  and  Scolopoeis,  where 
there  is  a  fane  of  Eleusinian  Demeter,  founded  by  Philistus 
son  of  Pasieles,  when  he  accompanied  Neileus  son  of  Codrus 
in  the  settlement  of  Miletus.  The  spotcwas  on  the  coast 
south  of  the  mountainous  promontory  of  Mycale,  just  before 
it  trends  south-east  to  the  embouchure  of  the  Maeander  and 
the  Latmian  gulf.  Gaeson,  which  is  with  Herodotus  appa- 
rently the  name  of  a  town,  was  the  name  also  of  a  river  that 
discharged  itself  into  the  lake  Gaesonis  and  so  into  the  sea. 
1Ephorus  spoke  of  the  Gaeson  and  its  lake  as  near  Priene, 
and  another  2  author  places  it  between  Priene  and  3  Miletus. 
The  ancient  line  of  coast,  owing  to  the  accumulated  deposits 
of  the  Maeander,  now  lies,  like  the  site  of  Priene,  far  inland  ; 
but  the  Gaeson  is  still  represented  by  a  stream  which  flows 
from  the  mountains  under  the  heights  that  are  occupied  by 
the  ruins  of  Priene.  Pliny,  immediately  before  coming  to 
Priene  from  the  south,  inserts  the  name  Naulochus,  which 
indicates  an  ancient  favourable  station  for  ships.  The  plain 
was  here  in  communication  with  Ephesus  and  Sardis  by  the 
road  across  the  mountains,  and  again  more  circuitously  by 
the  valley  of  the  Maeander,  past  Magnesia.  Here,  previously 
stationed,  or  rapidly  concentrated,  was  the  main  body  of  the 
force  originally  left  behind  by  Xerxes  to  watch  Ionia :  it  is 
set  down  by  Herodotus  as  60,000  (Diodorus  gives  100,000) 
men,  under  Tigranes,  a  commander  '  supereminent  among  the 

1  ap.  Athenaeum,  vii.  p.  311.  a  Ibid. 

3  Mela  also,  i.  17 — Ionia  'ciugit  urbem  Prieiien  et  Gaesi  tluminis  ostiuin.' 
Cf.  Pliny,  H,  N.  v.  31. 


120  II I  STORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Persians,  like  Xerxes  and  Mardonius,  for  stature  and  beauty.' 
The  Persian  admirals  drew  their  vessels  on  shore  and  hastened 
to  enclose  them  by  a  vast  fort,  of  sufficient  circuit  to  shelter 
the  army  in  case  of  a  reverse.  Trees  were  cut  down  indis- 
criminately, and  a  wall  or  bulwark  was  formed  of  mixed  stones 
and  timber,  and  strengthened  by  projecting  stakes  or  palisades 
— according  to  Diodorus  by  a  trench  also.  The  probability 
of  an  Ionian  insurrection  had  been  a  source  of  anxiety  ever 
since  the  reverses  in  Greece,  and  preparations  for  a  campaign 
in  the  collection  of  stores  and  provisions  had  in  consequence 
been  in  a  state  of  l  forwardness.  What  no  vigilance  or  fore- 
sight could  now  supply  was  that  spirit  which  is  required  to 
give  vivacity  even  to  unbroken  resolution,  and  to  remedy 
the  despondency  which  comes  over  a  multitude  when  under 
misfortune,  and  foredooms  to  destruction  an  army  which,  how- 
ever bravely,  has  suffered  defeat  after  defeat,  and  a  cause 
which  has  never  enjoyed  one  success.  And  then  too  a  large 
proportion  of  the  muster — enormous  doubtless,  reduce  the 
quoted  numbers  as  we  may — were  lonians,  who  were  justly 
objects  of  increasing  mistrust.  From  the  Samians  especially 
all  confidence  had  been  withdrawn  since  the  discovery  that 
some  500  captives,  taken  by  the  army  of  Xerxes  from  Attica*, 
bad  been  purchased  by  them  only  to  be  sent  home  free  and 
restored  to  his  enemies. 

The  aspect  of  the  enterprise  was  now  entirely  changed  for 
the  Greeks,  who,  with  all  their  rapidity,  at  last  found  that 
they  had  moved  just  too  late  to  find  the  ineffective  navy 
the  easy  prey  which  they  had  expected.  The  tardy  alacrity 
of  the  reticent  Spartan  was  probably  due  to  some  secret 
notice  of  the  preparations  for  the  Persian  retreat,  in  case 
the  signs  of  an  approaching  attack,  which  they  were  hopeless 
to  resist,  should  oblige  them  to  forego  their  hold  on  the 
now  uneasy  Samos ; — information  evidently  passed  over  as 

xl.  xi.  34. 


viii.]  THE  PERSIANS  AT  MYCALE.  121 

rapidly  in  one  direction  as  the  other.  A  suggestion  which 
was  made  upon  this  disappointment,  to  return  to  inactivity 
at  Delos,  was  set  aside ;  and  the  project  that  still  retained 
its  hold  as  much  on  the  imagination  of  the  Greeks  as 
on  their  reason,  of  making  for  the  Hellespont  and  the 
bridge,  had  scarcely  more  to  recommend  it  now  than  before, 
in  comparison  with  the  importance  of  striking  at  the 
hostile  fleet.  The  Samians  and  lonians  would  of  course  be 
more  urgent  than  ever,  and  with  more  effect  from  the 
manifest  justification  of  their  former  confident  assurances. 
It  was  resolved  therefore,  but  only  after  discussions  had 
caused  more  *  delay,  to  follow  up  the  chase  ;  the  ships  were 
provided  with  ladders  and  every  possible  preparation,  to 
enable  the  forces,  in  case  they  should  be  disappointed  of  a  sea- 
fight,  to  effect  a  rapid  disembarkation  and  try  the  fortune  of 
a  battle  on  laud.  Not  a  vessel  was  afloat  to  oppose  them 
when  they  arrived ;  all  were  seen  drawn  ashore  under  pro- 
tection of  the  wall,  while  a  numerous  army  of  foot  was  in 
array  on  land.  Leotychides,  in  imitation  of  the  policy  of 
Themistocles  at  Artemisium,  passed  along  as  near  inshore 
as  possible,  and  by  the  voice  of  his  loudest  herald  invited 
the  lonians  to  bear  in  mind  in  the  coming  baftle,  in  the 
first  place  Liberty  and  then  the  password  Hebe — selected 
apparently  as  the  name  of  the  spouse  of  his  ancestor  Hercules, 
herself  a  daughter  of  the  goddess  of  the  Samian  Heraeum : 
those  who  heard  were  urged  to  inform  those  who  did  not.  The 
proclamation  was  made  not  without  expectation  of  the  effect 
it  invited,  but  also  with  the  indirect  intention  of  rousing 
mistrust  in  the  Persians  towards  the  lonians,  to  whom  the 
herald  affected  to  believe  that  his  language  would  be  alone 
intelligible.  The  Spartan  seems  to  have  applied  his  bor- 
rowed stratagem  but  clumsily,  for  in  this  case  there  was 
much  fairer  hope  of  considerable  desertions  than  in  that  of 

1  Herod,  ix.  qS. 


122  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Artemisium ;  and  an  immediate  result  of  the  warning  was  that 
the  Persians  instantly  disarmed  the  Samians,  and  assigned  the 
Milesians  a  post  too  distant  to  allow  them,  in  case  of  defec- 
tion, to  interfere  in  the  expected  battle. 

The  Greek  debarkation,  as  it  was  effected  without  oppo- 
sition, must  have  been  made  at  some  distance  from  the 
entrenched  camp  and  army  ;  but  by  mid-day  or  later — 
Diodorus  says  the  day  ensuing — the  troops  were  marshalled 
and  moving  forward  to  the  attack.  The  Athenians,  who 
were  to  sustain  the  main  burden  of  the  battle,  were  com- 
manded by  the  archon  eponymus  of  the  year — Xanthippus, 
son  of  Ariphron  and  father  of  Pericles :  and  together  with 
associated  troops  of  other  cities,  Corinth,  S  icy  on,  Troezene, 
they  made  up  a  full  half  of  the  entire  force.  These  now 
advanced  direct  upon  the  enemy  over  the  level  ground  by 
the  sea-shore,  while  the  Lacedaemonians  and  the  other  half 
of  the  army  made  a  l  circuit,  and  having  to  traverse  on  their 
way  the  rough  ravines  of  torrents  and  spurs  of  the  mountain, 
came  into  action  later,  as  if  intentionally,  and  only  with  the 
view  to  an  effective  flank  attack.  The  spirit  of  emulation, 
of  which  the  Greek  was  so  susceptible  in  its  noblest  forms, 
was  now  *at  its  height  among  the  Athenians,  who  had 
recently  had  just  cause  to  feel  that  by  their  warlike  achieve- 
ments they  had  already  placed  their  country  on  a  line  with 
Sparta,  hitherto  the  recognised  leading-  power  in  Greece  ; 
while  in  breadth  and  boldness  of  political  views  and  in 
patriotic  self-sacrifice  alike  they  were  far  ahead.  The  present 
was  an  opportunity  for  winning  yet  another  advance,  and 
that  on  land — the  very  prerogative  of  the  Spartans  ;  and  the 
word  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  to  make  such  thorough 
and  speedy  work  with  their  already  despised  opponents  as 
should  give  them  at  least  the  largest  share  in  the  victory. 
It  was  afterwards  believed  that  another  influence,  not  in- 
dependent of  the  supernatural  powers,  was  at  work  to  heighten 
1  Herod,  ix.  102. 


viii.]  OMENS  OF  VICTORY.  123 

the  general  confidence  and  enthusiasm  of  the  host.  A  sudden 
and  instantaneous  rumour,  it  was  said — a  ^M — pervaded  the 
ranks,  to  the  effect  that  all  cause  for  anxiety  at  home 
was  happily  at  an  end ;  that  battle  had  at  last  been  joined 
with  Mardonius  in  Boeotia,  and  that  the  Greeks  were  com- 
plete victors.  What  may  have  been  a  bold  assertion  of 
the  loud-voiced  herald  to  the  1Ionians  became  a  belief  all 
the  more  exciting-  from  the  uncertainty  of  its  origin  ;  it 
was  indeed  afterwards  said  that,  as  the  troops  marched  along 
the  shore,  a  herald's  staff — confirmation  unquestionable — was 
seen  floating  inland  on  a  vast  wave ;  apparently  a  mythical 
version  of  the  incident  of  the  coasting  herald.  The  boldness 
of  the  present  attack,  by  only  half  the  men  that  could  have 
been  brought  over  by  the  Greek  squadron,  upon  such  a  host 
and  its  entrenchments,  might  well  seem  to  demand  some 
unusual  explanation.  Herodotus — notwithstanding  his  recent 
mention  of  a  falsified  ^M  *n  the  anecdote  of  the  Medising 
Phocians — has  no  difficulty  on  the  point ;  and  why  then  the 
soldiers  ?  and  is  not  the  '  interposition  of  the  Divinity  in  human 
affairs '  to  be  seen  in  the  coincidence  that  at  Mycale  again,  as 
at  Plataea,  the  battle  was  fought  close  to  a  temenos  of  the 
Eleusinian  Demeter?  That  the  recognition  of  this  locality 
may  have  been  to  Athenians  as  encouraging  an  omen  as  the 
name  Hegesistratus  was  to  the  Spartan,  we  need  not  doubt. 
It  was  believed  that  during  the  battle  of  Salamis  the  mystic 
cry  had  been  heard  from  clouds  of  dust  along  the  Thriasian 
plain,  avouching  that  the  divinities  of  Eleusis  were  proceed- 
ing to  protect  their  worshippers  ;  and  intimate  indeed  was 
the  connection  with  Athens  of  a  fane  of  their  own  goddess 
founded  by  a  comrade  of  a  son  of  Codrus,  their  own  patriotic 
king. 

The  incidents  of  the  battle  in  the  afternoon  correspond 
very  closely  with  those  of  the  same  morning  at  Plataea :  the 
Persians  were  first  attacked  behind  their  fence  of  gerr/ta,  and 

1  Diod.  xi.  34.  §  4. 


124  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

so  long  as  it  stood,  maintained  a  not  unequal  war ;  when  it 
fell  they  still  fought  bravely  for  a  considerable  time,  but  fle<J 
at  last  for  refuge  into  the  fortified  camp :  the  camp  however 
was  nearer  at  hand  to  the  Asiatic  battle-field,  and  the  Athenian 
pursuers  swifter  than  the  Lacedaemonians  ;  so  that  Athenians, 
Corinthians,  Sicyonians,  and  Troezenians  entered  pell-mell 
along  with  the  fugitives.  Resistance  was  still  continued 
within,  though  by  the  Persians  alone.  Of  the  other  troops, 
some  took  to  flight ;  the  Samians,  who  had  been  left  in  the 
camp,  though  disarmed,  found  means  to  assist  the  Greeks  so 
soon  as  they  were  encouraged  by  prospect  of  success,  while 
the  other  lonians,  incited  by  their  example,  and  forgetting  at 
once  the  faith  of  oaths  and  the  fate  of  hostages,  went  over  in 
a  body,  and  turned  their  weapons  on  the  barbarians.  The 
contest  was  still  undecided  when  the  Lacedaemonians  arrived 
fresh  upon  the  spot,  but  the  numbers  of  the  Persians  were 
already  fast  diminishing,  and  they  fought  only  in  knots,  in 
uncombined  onsets,  at  points  where  they  could  still  oppose 
the  entrance  of  the  Greeks.  Tigranes  himself,  the  general  of 
the  land  forces,  died  fighting,  and  with  him  Mardontes,  who 
in  the  European  expedition  had  led  the  islanders  from  the 
Persian  gulf — the  Erythraean  sea.  The  admirals,  Artayntes 
and  Ithamitres,  with  Masistes,  a  son  of  Darius,  who  had  been 
present  at  the  action,  were  among  the  few  men  of  distinction 
who  escaped.  They  succeeded  in  gaining  on  the  heights  of 
Mycale  a  better  refuge  than  the  mountain  afforded  to  many 
of  their  flying  troops.  The  mistrusted  Milesians,  who  had 
been  posted  among  the  defiles  and  declivities  at  the  rear  of 
the  army,  to  act  ostensibly  as  guards  of  the  passes,  but  in 
reality  in  order  to  prevent  their  deserting  to  the  Greeks 
during  the  battle,  now  found  themselves  precisely  upon  the 
line  of  communication  and  retreat  of  the  routed  army.  As 
treacherous  guides  they  led  the  hurrying  fugitives  into  false 
tracks,  and  either  deserted  them  in  their  bewilderment,  or 
brought  them  upon  the  very  enemy  they  shunned  ;  at  last 


VIIL]  THE  BATTLE  OF  MYCALE.  125 

turned  openly  upon  them,  in  the  spot  which  their  knowledge 
of  the  localities  pointed  out  as  most  advantageous,  and,  re- 
membering the  severities  of  Darius,  were  the  most  vindictive 
of  their  slaughterers.  To  this  place,  if  it  is  to  have  place 
anywhere,  we  must  transfer  the  l  incident  that  the  Greeks 
were  for  a  moment  checked  by  an  alarm  that  Xerxes  was 
arriving  from  Sardis  with  reinforcements  by  the  road  through 
the  defiles  of  Mycale,  but  only  to  be  presently  reassured  by 
finding  that  the  apprehended  enemies  were  lonians  in  revolt. 

The  battle,  thus  at  last  won,  had  been  strenuously  contested  ; 
Greeks  and  barbarians,  says  Herodotus,  were  animated  to 
exertion  by  the  feeling  that  the  islands  and  the  Hellespont 
were — a  true  Greek  figure — set  out  as  prizes  for  the  victors. 
When  the  slaughter  of  both  the  fighting  and  the  flying  at 
last  came  to  an  end,  the  Greeks  stripped  the  ships  and  camp 
of  the  booty,  comprising  the  military  chest  with  several 
stores  of  coined  money,  collected  it  on  the  shore,  and  then 
made  a  general  conflagration  of  the  palisaded  camp  and  of 
the  ships,  which  for  some  unstated  reason  they  did  not  re- 
launch. 

The  Greek  losses  were  considerable,  but,  like  their  original 
musteE,  are  unenumerated ;  the  Sicyonians  are  specified  as 
having  lost,  along  with  many  others,  their  general  Perilaus. 
The  chief  honours  of  the  battle  were  adjudged  to  be  the  right 
of  the  Athenians ;  after  them  are  named  in  order  the  Corin- 
thians, Troezenians,  and  Sicyonians,  who  fought  in  company 
with  them  ;  while  the  Lacedaemonians  and  their  associates  are 
unmentioned. 

Among  the  Athenians  themselves,  Hermolycus  son  of 
Euthunus,  a  pancratiast,.  was  pre-eminent ;  though  destined 
to  perish  later  in  an  inter- Hellenic  quarrel  between  Athens 
and  Carystus  in  Euboea ;  he  was  buried,  apparently  in  recog- 
nition of  his  fame,  on  Geraestus,  the  extreme  promontory  of 
the  island. 

1  Diod.  xi.  36.  §  3. 


126  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

'  And  so,'  says  Herodotus, '  Ionia  revolted  from  the  Persians 
for  the  second  time.' 

In  this  expression  we  have  to  understand  the  defection 
of  the  islands  also,  and  the  emancipation  of  Samos,  Chios, 
and  Lesbos  from  the  yoke  of  Persia,  by  a  process  of  which 
we  have  no  notice  or  particulars. 

Xerxes  had  lingered  at  Sardis  since  his  return  from 
Europe,  as  if  in  expectation  of  couriers  who  should  announce 
the  full  success  promised  by  Mardonius.  Since  the  an- 
nouncement by  the  train  of  beacons  of  the  reoccupation  of 
Athens,  he  could  have  received  little  consolation  beyond 
renewals  of  too  hopeful  promises.  The  European  intelligence 
was  at  last  to  be  anticipated  by  a  disaster  nearer  home,  as 
Sardis  was  reached  by  the  scanty  and  disheartened  survivors 
of  Mycale.  Salamis  had  cost  him  one  brother,  and  he  made  the 
most  of  the  escape  of  another,  Masistes,  from  perils  that  were 
not  at  an  end  when  he  had  eluded  the  Milesians.  Masistes 
in  his  flight  had  taxed  his  fellow-fugitive  Artayntes  with 
having,  by  his  miserable  generalship,  caused  the  entire  disaster 
and  the  disgrace  of  the  royal  house,  to  which  he  now  added 
the  abusive  charge  of  cowardice  worse  than  a  woman's :  at 
this,  the  most  poignant  insult  to  a  Persian,  the  self-restraint 
of  Artayntes  gave  way ;  drawing  his  scimitar,  he  rushed  upon 
the  brother  of  the  Great  King,  and  would  have  killed  him 
on  the  spot,  if  he  had  not  been  seized  round  the  body  just  in 
time,  even  before  the  guards  of  Masistes  could  interpose,  lifted 
from  his  horse,  and  flung  upon  the  ground.  It  was  a  Halicar- 
nassian,  Xeinagoras  son  of  Praxilaus,  who  rendered  this  service, 
and  Xerxes  rewarded  him  for  it  with  the  government  of  the 
whole  of  Cilicia.  It  had  been  more  fortunate  for  both  Masistes 
and  Xerxes  had-lhe  rescue  miscarried.  Even  the  catastrophe 
of  Plataea,  which  must  have  been  announced  within  a  day 
or  two,  was  less  fraught  with  misery  and  disgrace  than 
events,  not  on  a  distant  continent,  but  within  the  royal 
palace,  not  wrought  by  foreign  hostile  hands,  but  due  directly 


viii.]          FINAL  RETIREMENT  OF  XERXES.  127 

to  the  cruel  passions  and  lust  of  Xerxes  himself.  With  a 
narrative  of  these,  which  need  not  be  repeated,  Herodotus 
dismisses  him  from  his  history;  clearly  feeling,  though  he 
does  not  phrase  it  in  a  formal  moral,  that  public  violences 
and  impieties  were  thus  visited  with  retribution  within  the 
home,  and  within  the  tortured,  or,  even  more  severely,  the 
seared  and  callous  conscience  of  the  man.  With  such  an  epi- 
logue may  be  closed  the  story  of  too  many  a  selfish  scourge  of 
the  race ! — an  Augustus  Caesar,  a  Norman  William,  a  Prussian 
Frederic,  a  Napoleon,  to  take  names  almost  at  random. 

On  the  1 6th  of  February  in  the  ensuing  spring  occurred 
an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  which  the  superstition  of  the  time  may 
naturally  have  connected  with  the  final  disappointment  of 
Xerxes  and  his  retirement  from  Sardis ;  it  was  equally  natural 
that  by  the  time  the  tradition  reached  Herodotus  the  omen 
should  have  been  carried  back,  as  he  records  it,  to  the  days 
of  the  King's  inauspicious  departure  from  Sardis  for  Greece. 


CHAPTEK   IX. 

THE   CAPTURE   OF   SESTOS.— XANTHIPPUS  AND   AETAYCTES. 
B.C.  479;  01.  75.  a. 

IT  was  difficult  to  realise  that  this  check  to  the  power  of 
Persia  on  Asian  ground  might  prove  more  decisive  than 
the  still  severer  blow  inflicted  in  Europe.  Memories  were 
still  fresh  of  the  vengeance  which  Persia  had  before  inflicted 
on  Ionia  for  resistance  or  revolt ;  it  was  not  so  many  years 
since  the  tragedian  Phrynichus  was  fined  at  Athens  for  bring- 
ing into  too  painful  prominence  the  horrors  of  the  fall  of 
Miletus.  That  disaster,  and  indeed  the  ruin  and  desolation 
of  all  Ionia,  had  followed  upon  provocation  which  present 
events  seemed  to  repeat  too  exactly  not  to  introduce  like 
consequences.  Athens  had  then  interposed  to  encourage  and 
abet  a  rising  to  which  in  the  end  she  failed  to  give  any 
effective  support ;  while  the  transitory  triumph  of  the  burn- 
ing of  Sardis  and  the  fanes  of  Cybele  had  infused  into  the 
quarrel  the  venom  of  religious  vindictiveness.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising therefore  that  the  policy  of  general  migration  before 
vengeance  should  arrive,  which  had  been  partially  acted  on  by 
the  Teians  and  Phocaeans  at  the  original  subjugation  of  Ionia, 
and  the  wisdom  of  which,  as  urged  by  Bias  of  Priene,  was 
then  recognised  too  late,  should  again  be  brought  forward  for 
serious  consideration.  The  victorious  Greeks  returned  to 
Samos,  and  there  the  lonians  of  the  islands  and  the  continent 
had  to  face  the  question  how  they  were  to  protect  themselves 
with  better  fortune  than  before  against  the  too  probable  con- 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  IONIANS.  129 

sequences  of  the  revolt  to  which  they  were  again  committed. 
Their  elation  at  the  victory  of  Mycale  and  their  own  parti- 
cipation in  it  might  well  have  been  tempered  with  appre- 
hensions from  which  both  Athenians  and  Spartans  beyond 
the  Aegean  were  naturally  exempt.  But  the  Athenians 
themselves  were  at  this  moment  without  a  country  or  a 
city,  without  walls  or  temples,  relying  for  re-establishment 
on  their  ships,  their  transportable  wealth,  and,  above  all, 
their  population ;  and  were  known  to  have  professed  an 
intention  under  some  contingencies  of  seeking  new  and  dis- 
tant seats.  The  project  of  abandoning  the  Ionian  cities  on 
the  mainland,  and  apparently  on  the  three  great  islands  also, 
and  of  transferring  their  property  and  population  to  a  region 
removed  from  such  desperate  liabilities,  was  therefore  mooted 
with  serious  and  even  sanguine  advocacy.  It  was  the  Homeric 
story  of  the  happy  resettlement  of  the  harassed  Phaeacians, 
or  that  of  the  later  Phocaeans,  over  again.  Leotychides,  the 
Spartan  leader,  gave  the  proposal  hearty  support,  and  even 
affected  to  assume  that  it  was  decided  conformably  to  his 
authority,  and  that  the  next  p&int  to  be  discussed  was  the 
particular  destination.  The  lonians  could  have  no  hope  of  dis- 
posing of  Persian  enmity  without  aid,  and  it  was  out  of  the 
question  that  their  defence  should  be  undertaken  by  the  Euro- 
pean Greeks  under  the  conditions  of  maintaining  a  force  on 
the  spot  for  all  time.  If  they  were  to  be  protected  they  must 
be  within  easier  reach  ;  and  this  might  be  compassed  by 
putting  them  in  possession  of  the  trading  ports  (emporia)  of 
the  Greeks  who  had  Medised,  and  who  should  now  be  expelled 
to  make  room  for  them.  Boeotia,  Locris,  and  Thessaly,  where 
the  Aleuad  families  were  still  to  be  punished,  are  most  directly 
indicated  ;  but  Achaia,  and  more  especially  Argos,  which  had 
acted  so  equivocally,  might  also  be  considered  as  included,  and 
in  some  respects  affording  a  more  tempting  prospect. 

This  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  Lacedaemon  was  perfectly 
natural    and   characteristic    for   a   state    still    at    the   com- 


130  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

mencement  of  its  experience  in  remote  and  sustained  enter- 
prises. The  traditional  maxim,  to  limit  external  action  in 
respect  both  of  time  and  distance,  was  in  fact  a  constitutional 
necessity  when  the  predominant  class  at  home  was  constantly 
in  an  attitude  of  over-strained  watchfulness  and  jealous  de- 
fence. Leotychides  in  truth  only  discouraged  present  reliance 
upon  support  the  failure  of  which,  as  far  as  his  own  country 
was  concerned,  he  was  quite  right  in  assuming.  The  strength 
of  Sparta  could  not  long  be  spared  from  repression  of  the 
helots,  and  was  moreover  dependent  on  a  discipline  which  could 
only  be  enforced  and  sustained  by  keeping  its  employment 
ordinarily  within  bounds,  however  it  might  be  capable  of 
striking  out  suddenly  at  well  chosen  times  with  single, 
forcible,  and  decisive  blows.  The  difficulty  experienced  by 
the  Chians  in  drawing  out  the  Spartans  even  as  far  as  Delos, 
and  by  the  Samians  in  inducing  them  to  attack  the  Persian 
fleet  before  it  had  time  to  escape,  are  but  moderate  symptoms 
of  that  fixed  habit  that  could  satisfy  them  with  limiting  their 
efforts  against  Mardonius  to  defence  of  the  peninsula,  cut  off 
at  the  Isthmus  by  fortifications  which,  after  years  of  notice, 
were  only  completed  at  the  latest  l  moment. 

An  opposition  to  these  proposals,  however,  soon  gained 
head;  and  was  the  first  revelation  of  that  declared  rivalry 
to  the  supremacy  of  Sparta  in  thought  and  action,  which  was 
destined  to  maintain  itself  with  enduring  effects  on  Greece 
for  the  next  half  century,  and  on  all  history  thereafter. 
Short  as  was  the  period — not  twenty  years— since  the  first 
Ionian  revolt  was  quenched  in  blood  (B.C.  494),  Xerxes  was 
not  Darius;  nay,  the  men  of  the  age  of  Darius  were 
rapidly  dying  out;  and  it  was  apparent  to  lonians  that 
the  genius  of  the  Persian  empire  had  undergone  a  degene- 
racy, while  the  confidence  and  resolution  of  the  Athenians 
were  what  they  had  never  before  been.  It  was  the  Persian 
command  of  the  sea  that  had  been  fatal  to  Miletus  ;  but 
1  Thucyd.  5.  68. 


ix.]  THE  CAPTURE  OF  SESTOS.  131 

the  fair  prospect  that  this  had  now  been  finally  wrested 
from  them  altered  all  the  conditions  of  the  crisis  for  the 
islands  and  cities  on  the  sea-board.  The  Athenians  were  not 
backward  to  foster,  or  even  foment,  these  rising  protests,  and 
at  last,  when  the  issue  was  distinctly  joined,  they  came  for- 
ward with  one  of  their  own  ;  they  disallowed  the  necessity 
of  leaving  Ionia  to  desolation,  and  in  any  case  repudiated 
the  title  of  the  Peloponnesians  to  take  order  respecting 
colonies  of  which  Athens  was  the  metropolis :  it  .was  from 
the  prytaneum  of  Athens  that  the  Nelid  and  Codrid  leaders 
started  to  found  these  cities,  and  Athens  was  prepared  to 
defend  her  proper  relatives,  as  she  claimed  to  have  the  sole 
right  to  do. 

The  arrival  of  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Plataea,  while 
it  added  immensely  to  the  glory  and  prestige  of  Sparta, 
insured  the  restoration  of  the  Athenians  to  their  city  and 
country,  and  promised  a  revival  of  power  corresponding 
with  the  energies  her  citizens  had  so  uniformly  displayed. 
The  accession  of  strength  to  be  gained  for  operations  against 
Persia  by  attaching  the  islands  and  Ionia  as  allies,  might 
suffice  to  decide  Xanthippus  in  the  assertion  of  an  inde- 
pendent course,  whether  politic  jealousy  of  Spartan  designs 
against  Argos  came  into  consideration  or  no. 

To  the  opposition  thus  developed  the  Spartans  yielded  with 
a  good  grace ;  and  the  Samians,  Chians,  Lesbians,  and  other 
islanders  who  took  part  in  the  expedition,  were  admitted  into 
confederacy  under  an  oath  of  steadfast l  adherence. 

And  now  at  last  the  original  passion  of  the  Athenian  fleet 
to  make  for  the  Hellespont  could  be  satisfied.  The  bridge 
had  indeed  been  broken  by  storms  a  year  ago,  before  Xerxes 
recrossed  the  strait ;  but  it  might  be  capable  of  repair,  and  in 
any  case  it  was  desirable,  if  not  indispensable,  to  establish 
control  over  the  channel. 

1   Herod,  ix.  106-120;  Thucyd.  i.  89. 
K   2 


132  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

The  allied  fleet  moved  northwards,  past  the  now  liberated 
Chios  and  Aeolian  Lesbos.  Detained  off  the  sheltering  pro- 
montory of  Lectos,  the  westernmost  prolongation  of  the 
range  of  Ida,  by  the  late  north  winds  that  prevail  through 
the  Hellespont,  they  proceeded  at  last  to  Abydos.  Here  they 
found  that  the  bridge  which  had  extended  from  this  point  to 
Sestos  was  fairly  gone;  while  the  Persians  remained  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Chersonesus  opposite,  and  in  a  position  to  threaten 
free  navigation  and  annoy  the  opposite  coast,  or  even  to  assist 
the  transit  either  of  Persian  reinforcements  or  retreating 
troops.  The  Athenians  were  familiar  from  of  old  with  the 
Chersonesus,  where  some  of  their  citizens — among  them  the 
family  of  Miltiades — had  property  and  rights,  and  for  them 
the  liberation  of  the  Hellespont  was  only  an  opening  for  new 
enterprise.  But  Leotychides,  hitherto  the  recognised  head 
of  the  expedition,  now  declined  to  make  further  concession 
to  the  zeal  and  urgency  of  his  allies,  and  would  do  no  more. 
He  withdrew  homewards,  and  with  him  went  the  ships  of 
the  other  Peloponnesian  states — thus  marking  the  future 
breaking  line  of  the  great  confederation.  He  probably  could 
not  act  otherwise  under  the  strict  limitations  imposed  upon 
a  Spartan  king;  but  already,  and  especially  after  recent 
differences,  the  course  he  took  was  equivalent  to  a  temporary 
abdication  of  Spartan  headship,  and  a  qualified  resignation  of 
it  to  Athenians,  who,  elate  in  self-reliance,  knew  all  the  value 
of  the  opportunity,  and  were  secretly,  if  not  openly,  eager 
to  avail  themselves  of  1it. 

The  words  of  Herodotus  are  very  significant  as  to  the 
conditions  under  which  a  Greek  of  the  time,  whether  as 
member  of  a  confederacy  of  states  or  under  a  separate 
command,  submitted  his  actions  to  authority.  'It  was  de- 
termined by  the  Peloponnesian s  attached  to  Leotychides  to 
sail  away  to  Hellas,— but  by  the  Athenians  and  by  Xanthip- 
pus  their  commander  to  remain  where  they  were  and  make 
1  Herod,  ix.  114;  Thucyd.  i.  89. 


ix.]  THE  CAPTURE  OF  SESTOS.  133 

an  attempt  upon  the  Chersonesus.'  Interpreted  to  the  letter, 
Peloponnesians  and  Athenians  assert  as  much  independence 
of  their  respective  commanders  as  these  do  of  each  other. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  no  more  is  implied — though  this  is 
much — than  that  the  superior  can  only  enforce  orders  which 
are  in  accordance  with  public  feeling ;  the  feeling  being 
sometimes  liable  to  be  swayed,  not  to  say  forced,  by  the  re- 
soluteness of  a  commander,  as  the  commander's  resoluteness 
is  sometimes  by  his  sense  of  the  inefficiency  of  obedience 
when  not  rendered  with  good-will. 

The  hostile  occupants  of  the  Chersonesus  were  taken  by 
surprise,  and  hurried  at  the  first  alarm  to  take  refuge  in 
Sestos,  the  only  place  within  reach  of  such  strength  as  to 
be  defensible,  and  which  soon  became  over-crowded :  to  the 
native  Aeolians  and  refugees  from  places  around  were  added 
the  Persians  and  their  allies,  and  there,  with  no  provi- 
sion for  enduring  or  repelling  a  siege,  they  were  shut  up 
by  the  Athenian  investing  force  by  sea  and  land.  The 
Persian  Oiobazus,  who  was  in  charge  of  all  the  tackle  and 
materials  for  the  bridge,  had  come  in  from  Cardia  on  the 
northern  coast,  but  the  chief  authority,  both  of  the  city  and 
the  district,  was  Artayctes,  who  had  obtained  his  appoint- 
ment from  Xerxes,  and  afterwards  abused  it,  under  circum- 
stances that  made  him  the  object  of  most  vindictive  rancour : 
a  man,  says  Herodotus,  both  able  and  impiously  unscrupulous 
(beivus  Kai  araaOaXos] — epithets  which  he  justifies  as  follows. 
At  Elaeus  on  the  southern  point  of  the  peninsula,  within 
a  temenos  or  consecrated  precinct,  was  the  tomb  of  the 
hero  Protesilaus,  the  sacredness  of  which  was  avouched  by 
a  large  accumulation  of  offerings,  —  gold,  silver,  brass, 
costly  robes  or  dressings  (en-0?f?,  as  at  Plataean  tombs),  and 
so  forth.  The  tomb — apparently  in  form  a  naos,  or  at  least  a 
naidion — stood  menacingly  enough,  a  memorial  and  emblem 
of  the  first  collision  between  Asia  and  Europe  in  that  war  of 
Troy  which  Herodotus  recognises  as  the  prototype  of  all  their 


134  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

subsequent  hostilities.  Protesilaus  was  a  leader  of  Thessalians 
from  Phylake',  and  Homer  relates  how  he  was  the  first  to 
leap  from  shipboard  to  land,  and  the  first  also  to  die,  and  that 
on  the  spot,  by  a  Dardan  weapon ;  so  he  perished,  a  youthful 
bridegroom,  leaving  a  bride  'in  frantic  grief, — a  house  half 
finished.'  Artayctes,  the  story  ran,  begged  and  obtained  the 
temenos  from  Xerxes  by  the  representation, — '  Here  is  the 
house  of  a  Greek  who  met  his  deserts  when  invading  your 
territory ;  give  his  house  to  me  that  so  there  may  be  a  lesson 
to  others  to  keep  off  your  ground.'  He  despoiled  the  fane 
of  its  valuables  and  transported  them  to  Sestos,  and  gave 
up  the  temenos,  apparently  of  some  extent,  to  culture,  and 
still  worse  to  grazing,  and  worst  of  all,  insulted  wantonly 
the  most  sacred  associations  of  the  place.  The  story  of 
Protesilaus  was  a  traditional  exemplar  of  conjugal  affection 
most  tenderly  expressed,  and  its  details  point  to  an  analogy 
with  the  equally  Thessalian  tradition  of  the  self-sacrifice 
of  Aleestis,  which  vindicates  it  as  truly  national,  and  not 
a  mere  late  poetic  development.  By  supplications  to  the 
erods,  Laodameia  obtained  the  return  of  her  husband  to  earth 

O  ' 

for  a  three  hours'  colloquy,  and  then  died  with  him  as  he 
died  l  again.  This  colloquy  seems  to  have  been  a  subject 
of  mystic  representation  like  the  groups  of  Aphrodite  and 
Adonis  described  by  Theocritus  —  the  Pieta  of  antiquity. 
In  later  accounts  we  read  that  she  formed  a  lifelike  image 
of  her  husband,  kissed  it,  embraced  it,  talked  to  it  as  if 
alive  and  in  connection  with  some  sacred  rites,  and  at  last 
was  burnt  along  with  it.  The  tender  sentiment  clung  to 
the  locality,  and  gave  to  late  Greek  poetry  the  grief  of 
Hero  of  Sestos  over  the  corpse  of  her  Leander.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  develop  further  the  process  by  which  a  type  of 
conjugal  self-devotion — as  given  again  in  the  story  of  Or- 
pheus and  Eurydice,  and  on  the  vase-paintings  in  a  series  of 

1  Ovid,  Tritt.  i.  5.  20;  Hygin.  103-4;  Propert.  i.  19.  7 ;  Eurip.  frag.  Prot. ; 
Iliad,  ii.  695;  Ovid,  Htntidct,  xiii.  150. 


ix.]  THE  CAPTURE  OF  SESTOS.  135 

interesting  illustrations — became  for  the  Greek  a  type  for  all 
that  is  most  solemn  with  reference  to  either  the  commence- 
ment of  life  or  the  circumstances  and  apprehended  sequel  of 
its  conclusion.  It  is  enough  to  note  that  the  barbarian  could 
only  read  such  symbolism  coarsely,  and  find  a  suggestion 
for  desecrating  the  l  adytum  by  choosing  it  for  the  scene  of 
wantonness  and  gross  debauchery. 

Unprovided  as  the  city  was,  the  Persian  garrison  forced 
it  to  hold  out  to  the  last  extremity ;  so  time  dragged  on 
for  the  besiegers,  the  late  autumn  was  upon  them,  and 
even  the  Athenians,  with  so  many  motives  to  return 
home,  began  to  despair  of  success  from  seeing  no  sign  of 
progress,  and  urged  the  commanders — again  not  the  single 
Xauthippus — to  give  up  and  retire.  In  this  case  the  will  of 
the  commanders  prevailed ;  they  would  persevere,  although 
the  winter  was  close  upon  2them,  until  either  the  city  was 
taken  or  an  order  of  recall  arrived  from  the  Athenian  com- 
munity (TO  'AOrjvaLfav  KOLVOV}.  That  we  hear  nothing  of 
negotiations  when  the  besieged  had  really  no  hope  but  in 
tiring  out  their  besiegers,  was  possibly  due  to  the  know- 
ledge which  Artayctes  had  of  the  feelings  of  which  he 
was  the  object,  though  it  may  just  as  easily  be  due  to  his 
resolution. 

At  last  subsistence  failed  entirely,  the  very  thongs  of 
the  couches  had  been  cooked  and  eaten,  and  the  Persian 
garrison,  who  would  be  the  last  to  suffer,  were  reduced 
to  the  only  chance  left — to  break  out  and  escape.  Early 
one  morning  the  besiegers  observed  signalling  from  the  • 
towers,  and  speedily  received  intimation  from  the  native 
inhabitants  that  the  Persians  had  vacated  the  town  during 
the  night,  descending  from  the  wall  and  passing  the 
lines  at  an  unwatched  interval.  The  gates  were  imme- 
diately opened,  and  the  city  occupied  by  a  detachment, 

1  Herod,  ix.  1 1 6.  a  Thucyd.  i.  89. 


136  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

while  the  main  force  started  at  once  in  pursuit  of  the 
fugitives.  They  were  in  two  parties.  Qiobazus,  who  was 
in  advance,  succeeded  in  getting  clear  off  to  Thrace,  but 
only  to  fall,  before  he  could  reach  a  Persian  post,  into 
the  hands  of  the  Apsinthian  Thracians,  '  who  sacrificed  him 
to  their  native  god  Pleistoros ' — a  deity  of  whom  no  mention 
has  been  traced  elsewhere — 'in  their  peculiar^  fashion,  and 
slaughtered  those  who  were  with  him  in  another  fashion.' 
Artayctes  and  his  party,  who  had  less  start,  were  overtaken 
a  little  beyond  Aegos-potami,  and  for  a  short  time  main- 
tained a  defence :  some  were  killed,  and  the  rest,  among 
whom  were  Artayctes  and  his  son,  were  captured  and  led 
back  bound  to  Sestos.  We  are  further  told  how  the  captive's 
conscience  was  touched  by  the  miraculous  antics  of  some 
pickled  fish,  a  fact  not  worth  alluding  to  but  for  the  his- 
torian's comment,  which  implies  that  the  body,  or  at  least 
an  effigy,  of  Protesilaus  had  been  in  some  way  l  preserved. 
His  offers  of  ransom  were  declined — 100  talents  to  the  god, 
200  to  the  Athenians.  The  Elaeuntians  pressed  for  his  well- 
merited  execution,  as  vengeance  due  to  their  hero  Protesi- 
laus, whose  sanctuary  he  had  defiled  and  desecrated,  '  and  the 
disposition  of  Xanthippus  inclined  in  the  same  direction.' 
Elsewhere  the  historian,  mentioning  the  offence  by  antici- 
pation, attaches  the  name  of  Xanthippus  to  the  2  deed ;  and 
the  impression  is  conveyed  that  he  was  willing  to  stigma- 
tise him,  from  repugnance  either  to  cruelty  unworthy  of  a 
Greek,  or  to  the  general  character  of  the  persecutor  of  Mil- 
tiadcs.  Artayctes  was  carried  to  the  headland  from  which  the 
bridge  of  Xerxes  had  been  constructed,  or  as  some  said  to  the 
hill  above  the  city  Madytus,  and  there  nailed  alive  to  a  plank 
and  raised  aloft, — crucified  in  fact, — while  his  son  was  stum  d 
to  death  before  his  eyes.  This  refinement  in  cruelty  would 

1  Herod,  ix.  1 20.    The  relica,  too  valuable  to  be  lost,  were  known  to  P.  Mela* 
'  Sunt  Froteailai  ossa,  consccrata  delubro.'  ii.  a. 
*  Herod.  viL  33. 


ix.]  THE  CAPTURE  OF  SESTOS.  137 

alone  have  been  sufficient  to  indicate  in  what  direction 
lay  the  motive  of  the  hateful  deed.  It  would  scarcely  be 
a  relief  to  think  that  it  was  to  this  same  religious  rancour, 
and  not  to  the  cold  policy  of  stimulating-  superstition,  that 
three  of  his  sons  by  Sandace  sister  of  Xerxes  had  already 
fallen  victims,  having  been  sacrificed  on  the  prow  of  the 
galley  of  Themistocles  at  Salamis  to  Dionysus  Omestes,  in 
concession  to  the  clamours  of  a  crowd,  led  on  by  Euphran- 
tides  the  diviner.  Plutarch  gives  this  l  story  on  the  authority 
of  Phanias,  a  pupil  of  Aristotle. 

The  tomb  of  Protesilaus  was,  as  might  be  expected,  re-erected 
and  re-consecrated ;  and  the  mythical  prototype  of  Hellenic 
aggression  on  Asia  was  destined  to  be  visited  and  invoked  by 
a  more  fortunate  successor.  When  Alexander  of  Macedon 
retrod  the  steps  of  Xerxes  on  his  way  to  determine  in  what 
sense  the  Great  King's  dictum  as  to  the  ultimate  relations  of 
Europe  and  2Asia  was  to  be  fulfilled,  he  sacrificed  to  Prote- 
silaus on  his  tomb  at  Elaeus,  to  obtain  a  happier  landing; 
then,  after  offerings  to  Poseidon  and  the  Nereids  while 
passing  the  channel,  which  Xerxes  was  at  least  believed  to 
have  scourged  and  chained,  he  reversed  the  omen  for  his  army 
by  leaping  on  shore  first  of  all,  and  in  arms,  and  alighting 
scatheless.  It  was  probably  not  without  the  design  of 
counteracting  a  similar  superstition,  that  at  the  end  of  his 
first  campaign  he  sent  back  from  Caria  to  Macedonia  every 
newly  married  soldier — every  Protesilaus — in  his  army,  under 
generals  who  were  themselves  bridegrooms,  who  were  charged 
to  make  the  best  of  the  good  omen  by  bringing  back  with 
them  in  spring  the  most  numerous  reinforcement  possible  of 
both  horse  and  3foot. 

Sestos  captured  and  Artayctes  the  sacrilegious  punished, 
the  Athenians  were  at  last  free  to  make  the  longed-for 
voyage  homewards.  Byzantium,  upon  the  route  by  which 

1  Plut.  Tkemist.  13.  2  Herod,  vii.  n.  s  Anian.  Hist.  i. 


138  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

Artabazus  had  escaped,  still  remained  to  be  dealt  with ;  but 
this  was  of  necessity  a  work  left  over.  Conspicuous  among 
the  spoils  carried  home  were  the  cables  of  the  Persian  bridge, 
the  ingenious  workmanship  of  Phoenicians  and  Egyptians — 
as  dedications  to  the  gods.  The  Ionian  allies  also  returned 
to  their  newly-liberated  Cities.  And  so,  with  the  winter, 
ended  this  eventful  year. 

1  Thucyd.  i.  89 


CHAPTER  X. 

ATHENS    RE- WALLED. — THE    CONCEPTIONS   AND    CONDUCT 
OP  THEMTSTOCLES. 

B.C.  478 ;  01.  75.  a  and  3. 

WE  have  now  reached  a  point  in  the  story  where,  but  for  a 
few  anticipatory  hints,  we  are  deserted  by  Herodotus,  and 
through  the  years  that  intervene  between  the  fall  of  Sestos 
and  the  Peloponnesian  war  have  to  make  out  a  way  for  our- 
selves through  difficulties  and  contradictions  which  enhance, 
if  it  were  possible,  our  appreciation  of  the  guide  we  have 
parted  with.  Some  assistance,  and  in  certain  respects  the 
most  valuable  of  all,  is  given  by  the  few  pages  in  which 
Thucydides  summarizes  the  history  of  this  very  interval  of 
fifty  years — the  Pentecontaeteris  or  Pentecontaetia  as  it  was 
called  in  antiquity.  But  though  the  sequence  of  events  is 
observed  in  due  order,  there  is  unfortunately  a  want  of 
fixed  dates  and  precise  notes  of  intermediate  intervals. 
Other  most  important  and  interesting  details  are  obtainable 
from  Plutarch's  lives  of  Themistocles,  Aristides,  Cimon, 
and  Pericles,  and  even  some  notes  of  dates,  though  not 
uniformly  trustworthy;  his  narratives  of  incidents,  again, 
are  sadly  tainted  with  errors  and  contradictions  too  easily 
detected  not  to  oblige  us  to  hesitate  frequently  over  even 
an  unchallenged  statement  if  it  lacks  corroboration.  The 
chronologised  history  of  Diodorus  Siculus  is  likewise  of  very 
great  value,  but,  as  usual,  has  many  drawbacks.  It  is  even 


140  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

more  than  usually  unsatisfactory  for  the  years  that  we  are 
concerned  with.  Other  confusions  apart,  we  find  some  years 
left  entirely  blank ;  while  in  another  a  complete  series  is 
inserted  of  events  which  must  have  extended  over  several 
or  even  many  years,  and  we  are  left  to  determine  as  we  may 
whether  in  the  assigned  year  they  commenced,  or  culminated, 
or  came  to  an  end.  Such  are  the  limitations  of  our  main 
sources  ;  but  cross-lights  occasionally  visit  us,  reflected  some- 
times from  the  most  brilliant,  sometimes  the  most  trifling, 
remains  of  Hellenic  literature,  poetry  and  prose,  of  its  best 
period  or  its  most  debased.  Help  also  that  is  by  no  means  to 
be  neglected  in  our  dearth  and  distress  is  incidentally  obtain- 
able from  monuments,  from  inscriptions,  and,  still  more  im- 
portantly for  the  history  of  that  noblest  progress  in  which 
resides  so  much  of  the  interest  of  our  period,  from  works  of 
art. 

Immediately  upon  the  retirement  of  the  barbarians  from 
Attica,  and  with  complete  confidence  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  army  at  Plataea,  the  Athenians  for  a  second 
time  returned  to  a  devastated  country  and  ruined  city, 
bringing  back  the  women  and  children  from  their  refuge 
in  Salamis  or  Troezene,  together  with  whatever  moveable 
property  had  been  preserved.  Athens  itself  was  found  a 
heap  of  ruins :  except  some  of  the  better  houses  that  had 
served  up  to  the  last  as  quarters  for  Persian  nobles,  very  few 
were  left  entire,  and  of  the  circuit  of  the  walls  only  short 
interrupted  portions  remained.  The  emergency  was  however 
energetically  met  by  the  labour  of  the  whole  population,  slave 
and  free ;  while  Persian  spoil,  and  fines  exacted  severely  from 
Medising  islanders,  came  to  the  aid  of  the  property  which 
had  been  rescued,  in  procuring  means  and  materials. 

Themistocles  was  the  presiding  genius  of  these  opera- 
tions, and  in  prosecuting  them  with  zeal  and  forethought 
he  did  but  resume  a  career  of  which  his  conduct  of  the 
Persian  war  had  been  only  an  episode ;  the  dangers  and 


x.]  ATHENS  RE- WALLED.  141 

difficulties  which  he  there  overcame  were  indeed  only  a  portion 
of  what  he  had  been  preparing-  to  encounter,  if  not  to  provoke, 
in  furtherance  of  a  settled  design  for  the  aggrandisement  of 
his  country.  According  to  Herodotus,  Themistocles  in  the 
year  of  the  invasion  of  Xerxes  had  but  recently  attained  to 
eminence,  and  the  scholiast  of  Thucydides  l  notes  that  his 
archonship  was  in  the  previous  year, — an  assertion  apparently 
corroborated  by  the  absence  of  any  other  name  in  the  lists  for 
that  year.  But  the  authority  of  the  scholiast  is  not  great, 
nor  is  this  interpretation  of  his  words  very  satisfactory, 
and  there  are  considerations  in  the  narrative  of  Herodotus 
and  elsewhere  that  oblige  us  to  give  a  large  interpreta- 
tion to  the  limits  of  the  phrase.  The  death  of  Themistocles 
as  recorded  at  the  age  of  sixty-five  must  fall,  as  will  appear, 
about  460-459  B.C.,  and  he  would  in  consequence  be  thirty- 
two  in  493  B-c->  wnen  a  Themistocles  was  archon  eponymus  of 
the  2year,  thirty-five  in  the  year  of  Marathon,  and  forty-two 
in  483  B.C.,  three  years  before  Salamis,  when  it  was  as  the 
conclusion  of  a  rivalry  with  him  of  considerable  duration  that 
Aristides  was  ostracised.  The  removal  of  such  an  opponent 
is  quite  sufficient  to  explain  the  expression  of  Herodotus  as 
applying  to  his  acquirement  of  predominant  influence,  and 
there  therefore  appears  to  be  no  sufficient  reason  for  question- 
ing the  earlier  date  of  his  archonship. 

It  was  as  early,  then,  as  his  holding  of  this  office  that,  ac- 
cording to  Thucydides,  Themistocles  had  mooted  the  policy, 
and  even  made  a  commencement  of  the  plan,  for  fortifying 
the  promontory  of  the  Piraeus,  which  he  was  now  to  resume 
on  an  enormous  scale.  The  stunning  blow  inflicted  upon 
Greece  in  the  previous  year  by  the  fall  of  Miletus  had  been 
due  to  the  command  of  the  sea  by  the  Persian  fleet,  and 
Chios,  Lesbos,  Tenedos,  and  the  Chersonesus  had  succumbed 
in  rapid  succession.  Such  disasters  might  well  second  the 

1  Thucyd.  {.93.  2  Dion.  Hal.  6. 


142  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

arguments  of  Themistocles,  who  easily  read  in  them  the  moral, 
that  the  freedom  of  Western  Hellas  must  ultimately  depend 
on  maritime  superiority;  and  his  happy  appreciation  of  the 
position  and  resources  of  his  country  and  the  genius  of  his 
fellow-citizens  enabled  him  to  discern  that  public  confidence 
in  wise  counsel  was  alone  required  to  secure  that  superiority  to 
Athens.  There  is  every  reason  to  ascribe  to  him  at  this  early 
period  the  large  conception  which  he  was  now  to  declare  fully 
and  urge  on  to  execution ;  but  in  the  meantime,  as  a  still  rising 
man,  he  had  only  been  able  to  make  gradual  and  cautious 
1  advances.  The  circumstances  of  the  invasion  of  Datis  and 
Artaphernes,  while  they  confirmed  the  justness  of  his  views, 
interfered  prematurely  with  their  realization  ;  and  the  splendid 
victory  of  Marathon  was  certain  to  give  temporary  strength 
to  the  party  most  disposed  to  thwart  him.  It  was  only  after 
a  severe  struggle  that  he  succeeded,  in  opposition  to  the 
influence  and  supporters  of  Miltiades,  in  diverting  the  exclu- 
sive attention  and  resources  of  the  citizens  from  the  land 
force  of  hoplites,  to  ships,  and  ports,  and  arsenals.  It  was 
felt  on  both  sides  that  this  change  could  not  but  involve 
some  transference  of  power  and  ascendency  from  the  settled 
proprietors  and  cultivators  of  land  to  classes  of  more  restless 
habits  and  slighter  local  attachment,  and  it  was  contested  ac- 
cordingly. His  success,  such  as  it  was,  was  mainly  due  to  his 
adroitly  stimulating  the  jealousy  and  animosity  of  the  popular 
assembly  against  Aegina,  while  he  laid  the  basis  of  a  system 
which  had  prospective  reference  to  a  struggle  with  Persia  in 
case  of  need,  and  in  any  case  to  the  assumption  of  a  prime 
influence  over  Hellas.  It  was  thus  that  he  obtained  from  the 
people  their  patriotic  renunciation  of  the  surplus  profit  from 
the  Laurium  silver  mines,  which  had  previously  been  distri- 
buted, and  its  devotion  to  the  construction  and  maintenance 
of  a  fleet ;  and  with  such  success,  that  the  city,  after  having 

1  Pint.  Thcmitt. 


x.J  ATHENS  RE  WALLED.  143 

been  beholden  to  Corinth  for  twenty  triremes  to  complete 
an  armament  of  seventy  against  Aegina  in  the  year  before 
Marathon,  could  within  ten  years  of  that  event  place  two 
hundred  of  her  own  in  line  at  Salamis.  Herodotus  himself 
ascribes  the  creation  of  this  fleet,  which  '  was  the  salvation 
of  Greece,'  to  Themistocles  ;  a  fact  quite  inconsistent  with 
his  influence  being-  of  recent  date,  even  though  the  statement, 
that  he  gained  a  vote  for  the  entire  number  of  ships  at  once, 
cannot  be  received  against  other  evidence. 

It  was  only  in  respect  of  the  fleet  and  its  equipment  that 
these  preparations  were  sufficiently  advanced  to  be  fully  avail- 
able against  the  invasion  of  Xerxes ;  but  now  the  original 
plan,  with  all  that  it  promised  and  all  that  it  threatened,  could 
be  resumed,  and  Themistocles  exerted  all  his  authority  and 
influence  to  hasten  its  fulfilment. 

In  former  days  the  city  had  availed  itself  of  the  harbour 
of  Phalerum,  which  although  exposed  was  at  least  spacious, 
and  had  the  advantage  of  being  within  the  shortest  distance 
of  the  l  city  ;  but  on  the  representation  of  Themistocles  it  was 
resolved  to  abandon  this  in  favour  of  the  three  natural  har- 
bours formed  by  the  rocky  promontory  of  Piraeus.  One  of 
these,  of  smaller  dimensions,  appears  to  have  been  situated 
eastward,  at  the  foot  of  the  steeply-scarped  hill  of  Munychia  ; 
the  larger  and  more  important  lay  to  the  westward,  thoroughly 
sheltered,  and  accessible  only  by  a  narrow  and  easily  protected 
inlet.  The  position  of  Munychia  had  been  recognised  in 
earlier  times  as  liable  to  be  most  dangerous  for  Athens  if 
held  by  an  enemy — as  indeed  it  was  to  prove  more  than 
once  long  afterwards ;  but  the  plans  of  Themistocles  now 
extended  to  the  inclusion  of  this  in  a  general  circuit  of 
impregnable  walls,  defending  the  entire  peninsula,  and  of 
sufficient  extent  to  afford  refuge  for  the  population  of  the 
city  itself.  He  urged  upon  the  Athenians  that  it  was  from 
a  Persian  naval  force  that  they  would  have  most  to  apprehend 
1  Pausanias,  I.  i.  2. 


144  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

in  future ;  that  their  safety  depended  on  their  own  supremacy 
at  sea ;  and  that  should  the  time  ever  come  for  their  country 
to  be  again  invaded,  their  true  policy  would  be  to  decline 
as  before  to  rely  on  the  defences  -of  the  upper  city,  and 
fall  back  on  those  of  the  Piraeus  as  a  citadel,  where  they 
would  have  a  refuge  which  would  spare  them  the  sufferings 
of  their  late  migrations,  and  be  easily  maintained  by  a  few 
of  the  least  serviceable  of  the  population,  and  give  them  the 
opportunity  to  throw  their  whole  able-bodied  strength  on 
ship-board. 

The  locality  itself  provided  stone  in  abundance,  and 
Thucydides  refers  to  the  walls  as  still  existing  for  the 
solidity  which  Themistocles  proposed  to  give  them :  they 
were  sufficiently  broad  for  two  of  the  wagons  that  brought 
materials  to  pass  each  other;  they  were  not  formed  with 
a  core  of  rubble,  nor  was  mortar  employed,  but  they  were 
regularly  constructed  of  great  squared  stones,  the  upper 
surfaces  of  which  were  fastened  with  clamps  of  iron  run 
with  lead.  It  was  said  that  the  height  they  were  carried 
to  was  not  more  than  half  of  that  originally  intended,  but 
even  at  that  height  they  were  fully  defensible. 

Thus  it  was  that  Themistocles  first  gave  shape  to  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  maritime  empire  of  Athens  was  to  rest, 
and  of  which  the  parallel  long  walls  were  but  a  further 
application,  until  at  last  the  metropolis  itself  might  be  con- 
sidered as  within  the  impregnable  circuit  of  the  ports  and 
town  of  the  Piraeus. 

In  the  meantime  however  the  city  was  too  sacred  to  be 
neglected :  it  had  indeed  to  be  attended  to  in  the  first 
instance,  though  the  subject  of  the  fortified  ports  is  duly  in- 
troduced at  a  time  when  it  was  already  a  settled  design  and 
a  motive  force  in  political  action.  It  was  in  accordance  with 
these  ulterior  views  that  the  walls  of  the  city  itself  were 
recommenced  on  a  scale  greatly  in  excess  of  mere  repair 
and  restoration,  and  rather  commensurable  with  the  pre- 


x.]  ATHENS  RE-WALLED.  145 

tensions  of  a  state  which  had  before  been  self-confident  in 
energy  and  genius,  and  was  now  resolved  to  maintain  pre- 
eminence as  the  due  of  its  patriotic  devotion  and  services  in 
the  course  of  the  recent,  and  still  existing,  struggle.  The 
area  to  be  enclosed  within  the  new  walls  was  extended  in 
every  direction,  so  as  to  include  the  suburbs  and  to  admit 
of  future  expansion. 

The  scope  of  these  preparations  was  not  unmarked  or 
misinterpreted  by  jealous  eyes ;  the  apprehensions  of  Aegina 
were  at  once  re-awakened,  and  with  good  reason.  The 
predominance  of  the  Athenian  marine  was  already  absolute, 
partly  from  the  number  of  its  triremes,  and  still  more  from 
the  efficiency  with  which  they  were  manned  by  a  population 
whom  the  exigencies  of  the  time  had  transformed  into  trained 
and  dexterous  oarsmen,  whose  daring  and  self-reliance  had 
been  heightened  by  success.  If  Athens  were  to  be  secured 
from  attack  by  land  also,  the  last  check  upon  her  ambition 
would  be  lost.  Corinth  complained  later  of  the  fatal  in- 
dulgence allowed  to  these  preparations,  and  might  easily 
share  with  Megara  the  jealousies  of  Aegina ;  but  it  was 
from  Lacedaemon — as  head  of  the  Dorian  section,  if  not  in- 
deed of  the  entire  confederacy — that  a  protest  first  arrived  by 
the  mouths  of  special  envoys.  The  present  relations  of  the 
two  states  and  their  mutual  necessities  caused  the  objections, 
though  serious,  to  be  couched  in  terms  of  advice  rather 
than  expostulation,  Spartans,  who  on  principle  repudiated  the 
protection  of  walls  for  their  own  city,  might  with  a  show  of 
consistency  from  their  own  point  of  view  urge  the  same  mag- 
nanimous policy  on  others;  but  some  other  plea  was  necessary 
for  them  as  representatives  of  alarmed  Peloponnesian  allies, 
who  had  fortifications  of  their  own  which  they  were  not  likely 
to  renounce.  They  urged  therefore  that  to  fortify  Athens  would 
be  but  to  provide  the  Persian,  in  the  very  probable  event  of  a 
renewed  invasion  in  still  greater  force,  with  one  more  such 
dangerous  basis  as  he  had  already  used  to  advantage  in 

L 


146  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Thebes ;  the  Peloponnesus  would  be  a  place  of  refuge  sufficient 
for  all,  and  the  best  basis  for  defence  or  action ;  it  would  be 
better  indeed  that  the  Athenians,  instead  of  adding  to  the 
extra-Peloponnesian  fortresses,  should  co-operate  with  them  in 
razing  the  walls  of  all  the  others. 

Representations  so  moderately  expressed  might  be  as 
moderately  entertained,  and  meanwhile  the  progress  of  the 
walls  was  not  interrupted  in  the  slightest  degree.  But  the  real 
strength  of  the  feelings  in  reserve  was  presently  manifested 
by  the  growing  impatience  of  the  Spartan  envoys,  who  even 
took  upon  themselves  to  interfere  with  the  workmen  by  com- 
mands and  threats.  Themistocles  was  equal  to  the  occasion  : 
for  an  opposition  manifestly  so  serious  he  intimated  his 
serious  respect,  and  stopped  the  works  at  once ;  and  by  his 
advice  the  envoys  were  dismissed  home  without  delay,  satisfied 
with  this  compliance,  and  with  the  engagement  that  the 
Athenians  would  on  their  part  send  envoys  to  Sparta  to  de- 
liberate further  on  the  suggestion  that  had  been  put  forward. 
He  himself  in  fact  followed  them  forthwith,  but  for  some  time 
after  his  arrival  made  no  sign  of  bringing  the  business  under 
the  consideration  of  the  Spartan  authorities.  When  questioned 
by  some  of  the  leading  men  as  to  the  cause  of  the  delay,  he 
replied  that  he  waited  for  his  colleagues :  he  was  surprised 
that  they  had  not  arrived  long  ago,  as  promptly  as  him- 
self; some  hindrance  must  have  intervened  to  detain  them; 
he  had  no  doubt  they  would  make  their  appearance  in  all 
haste ;  and  so  with  one  excuse  or  another  he  made  time  draw 
on.  Theopompus  states  that  the  ephors  were  bribed  by 
Themistocles  to  connive  at  his  dilatoriness ;  and  such  a  sus- 
picion is  often  found  to  attach  as  naturally  to  Spartan  cor- 
ruptibility as  to  Athenian  craft;  but  the  confidence  placed 
in  the  plausible  negotiator  needs  no  other  explanation, 
and  possibly  admitted  of  none,  than  the  very  frankness 
of  his  plausibility,  the  unscrupulous  positiveness  of  his  as- 
surances, and  the  reception  that  was  appropriate  to  the 


x.]  DIPLOMACY  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  147 

comrade  and  colleague  of  Eurybiades  at  Artemisium  and 
Salamis ;  he  had  before  been  welcomed  at  Sparta  with  honours 
that  were  almost  extravagant,  and  Hellas  was  even  yet  not  so 
secure  against  Persia  that  his  friendliness  could  be  dispensed 
with  or  prudently  jeopardised  by  unhandsome  imputations. 
But  to  delay  thus  gained  there  must  necessarily  be  a  term. 
Rumours  that  the  walls  of  Athens  were  rising  all  the  while 
received  the  positive  confirmation  of  a  message  despatched 
from  the  watchful  Aegina  by  Polemarchus.  In  point  of  fact, 
Themistocles  had  arranged  with  the  Council  (Boule]  that  the 
work  should  be  recommenced  as  soon  as  he  had  started,  and 
the  departure  of  his  colleagues  delayed  until  the  wall  had 
reached  such  a  height  that  in  an  extreme  case  it  would  be 
defensible.  All  hands  accordingly  fell  promptly  to  the 
work,  men,  women,  and  children,  slave  and  free,  resi- 
dent and  stranger ;  and  all  available  materials,  whether  of 
private  or  public  buildings,  were  seized  and  made  use  of 
indiscriminately.  Thucydides  adverts  to  the  appearance  and 
miscellaneous  materials  of  the  lower  part  of  the  walls  in  his 
own  time,  as  evidence  of  the  hasty  energy  with  which  the 
work  had  been  executed.  The  stones  were  not  properly 
squared  or  fitted  in  courses,  but  laid  together  as  they  best 
might  be ;  and  amongst  them  were  visible  even  sepul- 
chral steles  and  sculptured  stones,  which  showed  that  not 
even  works  of  art  or  monuments  of  the  dead  had  been 
spared. 

To  the  direct  assertion  of  the  fact  by  Polemarchus,  as 
just  mentioned,  Themistocles  opposed  a  flat  denial  of  its 
possibility  ;  he  represented  that  so  extraordinary  a  tale 
should  not  be  taken  on  trust  from  a  source  which  was 
prejudiced  if  not  hostile  ;  let  men  be  sent  from  Sparta 
to  Athens  of  such  character  and  dignity  as  really  to  com- 
mand credit,  and  it  would  appear  how  grossly  Athens  was 
calumniated. 

The  challenge  made  so  boldly  was  accepted ;  and  Spartan 

L  2 


148  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

envoys  of  the  distinction  demanded  arrived  at  Athens  to 
open  their  astonished  eyes  on  an  effectually  walled  city ;  but 
the  reception  that  awaited  them  was  governed  by  a  message 
from  Themistocles  to  the  Council,  which  had  passed  them  on 
the  road.  Abronichus  son  of  Lysicles  and  Aristides  son  of 
Lysimachus,  his  colleagues,  had  before  this  joined  Themis- 
tocles with  news  that  the  requisite  height  of  the  wall  had 
been  accomplished ;  there  was  no  further  use  or  motive 
for  dissimulation,  but  the  indignation  of  the  Spartans 
might  be  dangerous  ;  his  instructions  accordingly  were 
to  detain  the  envoys,  with  as  little  appearance  of  coercion 
as  possible,  but  effectually,  until  he  and  his  colleagues  were 
released. 

The  Spartans  expressed  themselves  with  great  violence  at 
Athens,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  conceal  from  them  the 
fact  that  they  were  under  detention  ;  but  in  the  mean- 
time, the  hostages  fairly  in  hand,  Themistocles  believed 
that  the  shortest  and  frankest  explanation  at  Sparta  was 
the  best.  His  character  for  candour  could  in  no  case  be 
of  use  there  again,  unless  indeed  with  the  most  credulous 
and  after  lapse  of  time;  he  might  always  dispense  with 
it  in  dealing  with  those  who  had  neither  candour  nor 
scruples  of  their  own :  for  the  rest,  he  was  not  ill  satis- 
fied as  a  politician  with  the  price  for  which  he  parted 
with  it. 

He  therefore  presented  himself  to  the  Spartans,  with  the 
plain  announcement,  '  that  the  walls  of  Athens  were  now  so 
far  completed  as  to  afford  perfect  shelter  to  its  inhabitants ; 
and  that  in  case  the  Lacedaemonians  or  the  allies  had  any 
communication  to  make  to  the  Athenians,  they  would  please 
to  address  them  as  capable  of  knowing  their  own  interest 
no  less  than  that  of  the  general  community.  Of  such  capa- 
city there  was  proof  enough  and  notorious  ;  their  decision 
that  it  was  expedient  for  them  to  abandon  their  city  and 
take  to  the  ships  was  a  bold  resolution  adopted  independently 


x.]  DIPLOMACY  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  149 

of  foreign  counsel ;  while  on  the  other  hand  it  was  well 
known,  and  had  been  distinctly  admitted  at  Sparta,  that  in 
deliberating-  on  common  business  their  judgment  had  been 
inferior  to  none.  They  were  now  of  opinion,  that  it  was 
better  for  their  city  to  be  walled,  both  for  the  sake  of 
their  citizens  independently,  and  for  the  advantage  of  the 
alliance  at  large ;  inasmuch  as  it  was  quite  impossible  for 
states  to  deliberate  fairly  and  equally  on  common  objects 
unless  upon  an  equal  basis.  On  this  ground,  either  the 
existing  state  of  things  must  be  acquiesced  in  as  just,  or 
otherwise  walls  must  be  dispensed  with  by  all  members  of 
the  confederacy  indifferently,  whether  within  or  without  the 
Isthmus/  The  Lacedaemonians  suppressed  their  anger  and 
vexation  perforce, — '  they  had  interfered  with  no  purpose  of 
obstruction,  but  had  acted  as  public  agents  in  communica- 
tion of  an  opinion,  moved  indeed  by  a  particular  sense  of 
sympathy  with  the  known  zeal  of  the  Athenians  against 
the  Medes.'  And  so  the  two  embassies  returned  to  their  re- 
spective homes  without  further  difficulty  or  l  challenge.  But 
the  displeasure  rankled  at  Sparta,  and  was  to  rankle,  and 
the  time  came  one  day  for  Themistocles  personally  to  feel 
its  effect. 

To  this  occasion,  if  we  are  to  accept  them  at  all,  we  must 
refer  some  proceedings  which,  as  obviously  misplaced  by  Dio- 
dorus,  are  inconsistent  with  themselves,  and  as  transformed 
by  2  Plutarch,  only  reappear  to  be  further  involved  in  conflict 
with  most  assured  history. 

We  have  seen  Themistocles  acting  throughout  with  all 
the  freedom  of  absolute  authority,  though  apparently  un- 
invested with  any  leading  political  office  ;  and  this  at  a 
crisis  when  the  people  must  have  been  in  the  liveliest  agi- 
tation at  their  unprotected  condition  relatively  to  the 
jealousies  of  the  Peloponnesians.  On  no  occasion  could 

1  Cf.  Schol.  Aristoph.  Equ.  811.  J  Plut.  Aristides. 


150  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

he  have  appealed  with  more  reason  to  the  people  in  public 
assembly  (ecclesia)  to  be  allowed  an  interval  of  uncontrolled 
action  in  a  business  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the 
state,  but  which  in  the  interests  of  the  state  might  not  be 
divulged.  It  is  also  perfectly  consistent  with  the  jealousy 
of  the  demus,  that  he  should  be  called  upon  to  confide  his 
plan  to  Aristides  and  Xanthippus,  the  latter  of  whom  would 
have  reached  Athens  in  the  course  of  the  winter, — men  who 
commanded  public  confidence  not  only  from  their  general 
character,  but  in  such  a  contingency  from  their  being  at 
least  his  rivals,  if  not  his  declared  opponents.  The  report 
however  which  was  thus  obtained,  that  the  scheme  was  both 
advantageous  and  feasible,  again  only  excited  the  popular 
mistrust  of  a  man  who,  already  well  known  as  an  intriguer 
of  unrivalled  ingenuity,  had  now  enlisted  his  very  compe- 
titors on  his  side  and  in  favour  of  his  most  marked  ad- 
vancement. They  therefore  insisted  further — so  the  story 
continues — that  he  should  admit  the  Council  into  the  secret 
of  his  policy ;  and  that  after  this,  if  the  report  were  to  the 
same  effect,  the  liberty  of  action  which  be  demanded  should 
be  finally  conceded  to  him.  The  great  advantage  and 
practicability  of  the  plans  were  now  affirmed;  and  so  at" 
last  with  difficulty,  and  with  curiosity  stimulated  to  the 
highest  pitch,  Council  and  ecclesia  gave  up  the  control  of 
the  state  to  a  single  man,  who  was  to  exercise  it  for  a  time 
without  check  or  supervision :  and  thus  the  stratagem  ob- 
tained a  success  which,  whether  it  might  or  might  not  have 
been  gained  by  a  more  direct  method,  was  at  any  rate  held 
to  justify  the  demand  of  the  administrator,  and  the  con- 
fidence, so  cautiously  bestowed,  of  the  Athenian  demus. 

The  city  once  walled,  we  hear  of  no  further  opposition  or 
protest  at  present  from  either  the  Lacedaemonians  or  their 
immediate  allies  ;  but  the  jealousy  they  had  already  displayed 
could  not  but  be  enhanced  and  their  animosity  envenomed 
by  the  consciousness  of  the  contemptuous  way  in  which 


x.]  DIPLOMACY  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  151 

such  clumsy  schemes  of  interference  had  been  seen  through 
and  set  aside.  To  the  Athenians,  who  were  perfectly  aware 
of  these  sentiments,  they  could  only  act  as  incitements 
to  second  the  urgency  of  Themistocles  to  complete  the 
defensive  works  at  the  Piraeus. 


CHAPTER    XL 

LEOTYCHIDES   IN   THESSALY. — THE   CONDITIONS   OF   KINGSHIP 
AT   SPAETA. 

B.C.  478 ;  01.  75.  a  and  3. 

THE  Athenian  fleet,  as  we  have  seen,  was  detained  at  least 
till  the  near  approach  of  winter  by  the  siege  of  Sestos,  after 
the  Peloponnesians  had  retired,  and  only  then  at  last  made 
the  wished-for  return  to  Athens,  where  the  restoration  of  the 
city  and  the  resettlement  of  society  and  domestic  life  awaited 
all  available  assistance.  On  this  account,  and  inasmuch  as 
Aristides,  who  is  next  named  in  command  of  the  fleet,  was 
occupied  with  the  prolonged  negotiations  about  the  walls  of 
Athens,  we  cannot  safely  reckon  upon  it  as  having  resumed , 
action  so  early  as  the  ensuing  spring  of  478  B.C. 

The  most  pressing  services  required  of  it  were,  first  to 
follow  in  the  track  of  the  Persian-Phoenician  fleet,  which 
had  escaped  before  the  disaster  at  Mycale,  and  if  not  to 
reach  it,  to  provide  occupation  for  it  elsewhere;  and  then 
to  take  Byzantium,  which  still  insured  to  the  Persians 
a  ready  transit  by  the  route  of  Artabazus  from  Asia  to 
Europe,  either  on  some  new  expedition  or  to  support  the 
garrisons  in  Thrace,  and  the  power  of  interfering  with  the 
trade  to  and  from  the  Euxine.  But  the  strong  northern 
winds  which  through  the  summer  always  set  down  the 
Propontis  and  Hellespont,  mark  out  the  early  part  of  the 
year  for  the  important  expedition  to  Byzantium,  and,  under 


LEOTYCHIDES  Itf  THESSALY.  153 

all  the  circumstances,  it  seems  to  have  been  deferred  to 
the  spring  of  the  next  year,  477  B.C.  This  inference  is  in 
harmony  with  Diodorus,  who  assigns  it  to  the  archonship 
of  Adeimantus. 

It  would  be  inconsistent,  however,  to  suppose  that  the 
intermediate  year  was  entirely  unemployed  in  the  war, 
though  it  may  have  been  mainly  occupied  with  preparations 
for  a  more  vigorous  renewal,  as  soon  as  some  past  ravages 
had  been  repaired.  To  this  year  accordingly  we  must  assign 
an  expedition  of  great  importance  in  its  purpose,  but  of 
which,  in  consequence  of  its  failure  to  realise  any  important 
results,  we  have  but  the  most  cursory  notice. 

A  land  force,  we  are  told,  was  despatched  by  the  Lacedae- 
monians, under  the  king  Leotychides,  to  act  in  Thessaly 
against  the  Aleuad  princes,  who,  replaced  in  authority  by 
the  Persian,  had  rendered  zealous  aid  against  Hellas  to  the 
very  last.  There  was  the  best  hope  of  native  assistance, 
as  a  strong  party  of  Thessalians  had  originally  displayed 
hearty  Hellenic  ]  sympathy,  and  promoted,  as  long  as  there 
was  reasonable  chance  of  success,  the  defence  of  the  passes 
of  Olympus.  On  the  occasion  referred  to  a  combined  Athe- 
nian and  Spartan  force  had  been  carried  by  the  Euripus  past 
Thermopylae  to  disembark  at  Halos,  on  the  western  Achaian 
shore  of  the  Pagasaean  gulf.  The  same  route  was  probably 
adopted  in  the  present  instance,  when  Lai'issa  was  the  object 
of  attack.  It  is  at  least  in  harmony  with  this  view  that, 
according  to  a  proposed  correction  of  a  text  of  2  Pausanias, 
it  was  in  the  fourth  year  after  the  death  of  Leonidas  (a 
period  sufficiently  covered  by  the  duration  of  this  expedition) 
that  his  remains  were  brought  back  from  Thermopylae  to 
Sparta  by  Pausanias,  who  thus  acted  appropriately  as  his 
nephew  and  regent  for  his  son,  and  who  is  found  the  next 
year  in  command  of  the  fleet. 

1  Herod,  vii.  172.  2  Paus.  iii.  14.  I. 


154  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Whenever  this  occurred,  we  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  done 
in  obedience  to  an  oracle,  though  none  is  on  record.  The 
unaltered  text  of  the  Periegesis,  however,  gives  an  interval 
of  forty  years,  which  carries  on  the  incident  to  the  time  of 
the  grandson  and  namesake  of  Pausanias.  Arnold  Schaefer 
is  unusually  weak  here,  when  he  finds  a  motive  for  the 
transfer  at  this  time  in  the  possibility  of  danger  from  the 
Athenians  to  the  sacred  relics  as  at  first  l  deposited. 

It  is,  again,  as  connected  with  this  expedition  to  Thessaly, 
that  we  obtain  an  available  explanation  of  the  notice  that 
the  combined  fleets  of  Athens  and  Sparta  were  present,  some 
time  after  the  retirement  of  the  Persians,  in  the  bay  of 
Pagasae,  as  they  well  might  be  now,  for  co-operating  with 
or  transporting  the  land  force.  How  Themistocles  had  a 
private  project  for  treacherously  destroying  the  fleet  of 
the  allies  of  Athens  ;  how  Aristides,  to  whom  the  demus 
required  the  plan  to  be  divulged,  reported  that  it  was 
advantageous  but  dishonourable;  and  how,  thereupon,  it 
was  refused  further  entertainment, — this  is  a  tale  in  which 
Plutarch  gives  new  colour  and  details  to  what  we  have 
divined  of  the  part  played  by  Aristides  in  first  learning 
privately  the  views  of  Themistocles  in  staying  the  works  x 
on  the  walls,  and  then  in  not  denouncing,  but  very  effectively 
furthering,  the  stratagem  against  Lacedaemon. 

To  the  present  occasion,  however,  we  may  probably  refer 
the  opposition  of  Themistocles  to  a  Spartan  proposal  for 
forfeiting  the  ancient  Amphictyonic  rights  of  all  cities  that 
had  failed  to  take  part  against  the  Medes.  He  appre- 
hended the  preponderance  that  would  accrue  to  Spartan 
influence,  but  argued  broadly  against  excommunicating  all 
Greece,  except  some  thirty-one  cities,  of  which  the  majority 
were  so  small  that  the  assembly  would  virtually  be  in  the 
control  of  two  or  three  of  the  largest ;  and  to  this  reasoning 
the  Pylagorae  gave  in. 

1  Am.  Schaefer  De  rerum  p.  bell.  Pert.  p.  8. 


XL]  LEOTYCHIDES  IN  EXILE.  155 

A  few  lines  of  l  Herodotus,  which  are  confirmed  as  well  as 
copied  by  2  Pausanias,  apprise  us  further,  that  Leotychides 
had  a  course  of  military  success  which  it  was  believed  that 
he  only  failed  to  push  to  completeness  because  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  corrupted  by  those  whom  it  was  his  office  to 
chastise.  He  had  however  been  mistrusted  by  the  oligar- 
chical ephors  as  likely  to  be  too  eager,  king  as  he  was,  to  drive 
the  Aleuad  princes  of  Larissa  to  extremities.  It  was  not  so 
long  ago  as  to  be  forgotten  that  king  Cleomenes,  who  had  been 
their  instrument  for  putting  an  end  to  the  tyranny  of  the 
Peisistratids  at  Athens,  had  attempted  for  his  own  purposes  to 
install  Isagoras  in  their  place.  Leotychides  was  watched  in 
his  very  camp,  and  at  least  declared  to  be  detected  in  the 
possession  of  a  large  bribe — a  gloveful  of  money  under  his 
very  seat.  On  his  return  to  Lacedaemon — at  latest,  therefore, 
at  the  end  of  the  campaign,  the  winter  of  478  B.C. — the 
charge  was  pressed,  and,  rather  than  abide  the  result  of  a 
trial,  he  retired  to  Tegea  in  Arcadia,  his  house  was  razed 
to  the  ground,  and  he  never  was  recalled. 

He  died  at  Tegea,  and  Diodorus,  in  agreement  with  better 
authorities,  says  after  a  reign  of  twenty-two  years,  which  was 
succeeded  by  that  of  Archidamus  of  forty-two  years ;  but  he 
assigns  his  death  to  the  archonship  of  Phaedon  (=476-53.0.), 
and,  so  far  consistently,  the  death  of  3  Archidamus  to  434  B.C. 
His  own  subsequent  record,  however,  of  the  acts  of  Archi- 
damus is  at  variance  with  this  date,  and  in  accordance  with 
both  4 Plutarch  and  Thucydides,  who  enable  us  to  fix  the  term 
of  the  life  of  Archidamus  decisively  in  427-6  B.C.,  and  the 
commencement  of  his  reign  in  469  B.C.  Diodorus  therefore 
antedates  the  commencement  of  either  reign  by  seven  years. 

The  chronology  of  the  succession  is  thus  satisfactorily  cor- 
rected ;  but  it  is  not  an  unimportant  question  how  Diodorus 
was  led  into  the  error  that  he  carried  forward  so  persistently. 

1  Herod,  vi.  72.  a  Paus.  iii.  7.  9. 

3  Diod.  xii.  45.  *  Plut,  Cimon,  16. 


156  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

By  one  explanation  he  merely  transferred  an  event  to  the 
archonship  of  Phaedon  from  that  of  Apsephion  by  mistake  in 
the  name,  which  in  its  place  he  certainly  mis-copies  ^haion. 
Another  and  more  satisfactory  view  is,  that  his  erroneous 
date  for  the  death  is  the  interchanged  date  of  exile.  The 
exile  followed  immediately  upon  the  Thessalian  expedition,  of 
which  no  date  is  given  either  for  one  year  or  another,  but 
which  is  quite  in  its  place  if  undertaken  to  punish  Medism  in 
477  B.C.,  though  not  easily  accommodated  to  the  circumstances 
of  469  B.C.  The  expression  of  Herodotus,  that  he  did  not 
live  on  to  old  age  in  Sparta,  conveys  with  sufficient  distinct- 
ness that  his  life  was  considerably  prolonged  after  his  retire- 
ment,— that  he  was  to  attain  to  old  age,  but  elsewhere. 

According  to  this  supposition,  therefore,  the  exile,  or 
rather  flight,  of  Leotychides  was  not  reckoned  as  formal  de- 
position, and  it  was  only  from  his  death  that  Archidamus, 
whatever  authority  was  allowed  him  in  the  interim,  was 
recorded  as  king.  A  parallel  to  a  certain  extent  occurs  in 
the  case  of  Pleistoanax,  son  of  the  regent  Pausanias ;  he 
also  was  charged  with  military  remissness  for  the  sake  of 
a  bribe,  was  in  exile  eighteen  years,  during  which  time 
his  son,  a  minor,  is  alluded  to  as  2king ;  was  then  recalled,  . 
and  has  at  last  his  term  of  exile  included  in  the  full  tale  of 
his  fifty  years  of  3  reign.  The  tale  of  his  son's  regnal  years 
only  commences  from  this  term,  his  previous  dignities  not- 
withstanding. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Archidamus  likewise  was  a  minor 
at  the  time  of  his  grandfather's  disgrace,  though  from 
some  considerations  unlikely.  It  was  before  his  exile  that 
Leotychides,  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  his  son  Zeuxi- 
damus,  married  a  second  wife;  it  is  implied  that  a  son  by" 
this  second  marriage  would  have  superseded  Archidamus, 
the  heir  of  his  deceased  son  Zeuxidamus,  perhaps  in  accord- 

1  Ol.  74.  4.  '  Thuc.  iii.  *6.  '  Diod.  xiii.  75. 


xi.]         CONDITIONS  OF  ROYALTY  AT  SPARTA.        157 

ance  with  precedent,  as  the  eldest  born  during  his  father's 
kingship.  The  only  issue  of  this  later  marriage,  however, 
was  a  daughter,  Lampito,  whom  he  gave  in  marriage  to 
the  presumptive  heir  Archidamus — son  of  her  half-brother, 
his  own  grandson,  and,  in  default  of  his  further  male  issue, 
his  heir ;  and  this  would  seem  more  probably,  though  after 
all  by  no  means  certainly,  to  have  taken  place  before  his 
exile  than  after  it. 

The  circumstances  of  royalty  at  Sparta  about  this  time 
may  be  taken  as  representing  many  of  the  contingencies  and 
consequences  of  its  hard  conditions  generally.  Leotychides 
only  followed  into  exile  his  predecessor  Demaratus,  who  had 
been  supplanted  by  an  intrigue  to  which  he  himself  had 
been  a  party,  and  which  involved  corruption  of  a  Delphic 
priestess;  and  the  authority  of  the  representative  of  tlje 
Proclid  line  of  Heracleids,  his  grandson  Archidamus,  could 
scarcely  be  confirmed  so  long  as  his  own  return  was  a  possi- 
bility. As  regards  the  other,  the  Agid  line,  Cleomenes, 
the  elder  brother  and  predecessor  of  Leonidas,  had  been 
a  party  to  the  extrusion  of  Demaratus,  and  a  feeling  which 
arose  from  some  discoveries  upon  the  subject  so  far 
alarmed  him  that  he  retired  to  Thessaly,  was  then  suspi- 
ciously busy  in  Arcadia,  was  at  last  and  perhaps  in  conse- 
quence recalled,  but  soon  died  a  maniac.  The  present  king 
Pleistarchus,  son  of  Leonidas,  was  still  a  minor;  to  what 
stringent  control  his  cousin  and  guardian,  the  regent  Pau- 
sanias,  was  amenable  we  shall  presently  see,  and  how  soon 
the  accession  of  Pleistoanax,  the  son  of  the  regent,  was 
superseded  by  an  exile  that  was  to  last  for  some  twenty 
years. 

The  position  and  authority  of  the  kings  would  thus 
appear  at  this  time  to  be  about  the  least  stable  thing  at 
Sparta.  The  relation  indeed  of  the  ephors  to  the  kings 
was  such,  that  kings  and  regents  could  scarcely  but  chafe 
under  interference  and  control,  and  be  uneasy  as  to  con- 


158  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CIIAP. 

slant  peril  from  one  trumped-up  charge  or  another  ;  and 
the  ephors  on  their  side  had  cause,  if  only  by  their 
knowledge  of  this  very  uneasiness,  always  to  exert  their 
great  power  of  self-protection  early  enough  and  vigorously 
enough. 

It  is  not  easy  to  read  all  the  stories  that  are  told  to 
account  for  the  setting  aside,  and  no  less  for  the  reinstate- 
ment, of  Spartan  kings,  without  concluding  that  many  of 
them  can  but  represent  pretexts  for  political  or  private  ob- 
jects, of  which  the  true  particulars  are  hidden  far  beyond 
detection.  In  a  state  so  bound  to  the  observance  of  rigid 
laws  and  constitution,  changes  of  policy  either  requisite  or 
desired,  precautions  against  ambition  or  excessive  influence, 
or  even  the  substitution  of  another  for  the  hereditary  military 
commander,  seem  to  have  been  effected  as  systematically  by 
a  charge  of  bribery  or  by  a  procured  oracle,  as  they  -were  at 
Athens  more  frankly,  without  any  definite  charge  at  all,  by 
the  process  of  ostracism. 

The  Athenian  demus  could  not  be  more  jealous  of  the 
independence  of  its  command  than  was  the  Spartan  oli- 
garchy. It  was  in  genuine  aversion  to  tyrannies,  and 
to  the  contagion  of  their  example,  that  the  ephors,  by* 
the  not  always  zealous  hands  of  their  own  kings,  had 
rooted  out  the  tyrants  from  Athens  and  other  cities  of 
Hellas  ;  and  now  the  example  of  Athens  in  rebuking  Mil- 
tiades  for  seeming  to  claim  the  entire  credit  of  1  Marathon, 
was  followed  at  Sparta  by  a  severe  check  administered  to 
the  first  display  of  arrogance  by  the  victor  of  Plataea.  To 
the  basis  of  the  tripod  at  Delphi,  which  was  a  common 
Greek  dedication  for  this  victory,  he  had  attached  an  in- 
scription which  Thucydides  preserves,  and  which  named  him- 
self alone,  both  as  victor  and  dedicator. 

The    ephors    had    it    instantly    erased,    and    substituted 

1  Plutarch,  V.  Aritt. 


XL]  THE  REBUKE  TO  PAUSANIAS.  159 

another  reciting  only  the  names  of  the  dedicating  con- 
federate cities;  his  position  was,  however,  otherwise  at 
present  undisturbed.  The  signs  of  the  erasure  have  been 
recognised  beside  the  inscription  upon  the  bronze  basis  as 
it  still  exists  at  Constantinople. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

PAUSANIAS   AND   ARISTIDES    AT    BYZANTIUM. ATHENIAN    ACCEPT- 
ANCE  OF   THE   ACTIVE    LEADERSHIP    OF    HELLAS. 

B.C.  477;  Ol.  75.  3  and  4. 

BY  the  early  spring  of  the  next  year,  477  B.C.,  a  large 
naval  armament  was  afloat.  Pausanias,  son  of  Cleombrotus, 
says  Thucydides,  was  despatched  from  Laeedaemon  as  general 
of  the  Hellenes,  with  twenty  Peloponnesian  ships ;  and  with 
them  sailed  the  Athenians  in  thirty  ships,  and  a  considerable 
number  of  other  allies.  Diodorus  seems  to  include  the  other 
allies  in  the  proper  squadron  of  Pausanias,  which  he  gives 
at  fifty  ships  in  all.  They  probably  mustered  on  the  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  their  first  attempts  were  made  on  Cyprus/ 
where  the  Persian  garrisons  were  expelled  from  most  of  the 
cities.  The  complete  liberation  of  the  entire  island,  however, 
could  not  be  effected,  at  least  within  the  time  available ;  the 
attempt  was  renounced,  and  the  fleet,  anticipating  the  con- 
trary summer  winds,  made  for  the  north,  and  reached  Byzan- 
tium, to  find  it  probably  all  the  more  unprepared  for  defence, 
from  reports  received  of  the  direction  of  hostilities  elsewhere. 
The  city  was  not  taken  without  some  l fighting;  but  we  hear 
of  no  considerable  difficulty  or  prolongation  of  the  siege.  A 
certain  number  of  the  defenders  escaped ;  but  on  the  capture, 
Pausanias  found  himself  not  only  a  second  time  in  possession 

1  Diod.  xi.  44. 


PAUSANIAS  CAPTOR  OF  BYZAXT1UM.         161 

of  the  wealthy  spoil  of  the  chief  refuge  of  the  Persians  in 
Europe,  but  also  of  a  number  of  important  prisoners — officers, 
and  even  relatives  of  the  Great  King.  This  second  success, 
won  by  him  at  the  head  of  the  confederated  naval  force  of 
Hellas,  as  he  had  won  Plataea  in  command  of  the  united 
land  forces,  seems  to  have  filled  the  mind  of  the  Spartan 
regent  with  dreams  of  emancipation  from  the  control  of 
his  national  constitution — the  galling  interference  of  ephors 
— of  which  the  peril  of  Leotychides  was  a  recent  and  perhaps 
an  intentionally  warning  example,  and  which  had  but  lately 
exposed  himself  to  so  public  a  humiliation. 

We  miss  throughout  the  story  of  his  treason  any  intima- 
tion of  a  really  profound  and  promising  scheme ;  no  exten- 
sive connection  of  adherents  among  the  allies  is  hinted  at,  no 
apparent  opportunity  of  turning  the  discontents  of  a  powerful 
class,  the  madness  of  many  or  of  few,  to  the  elevation  of  him- 
self to  the  position  of  a  tyrant — for  nothing  less  was  the 
project  of  Pausanias — of  universal  Hellas.  Absolute  self- 
contained  arrogance,  recalling  the  frequent  relationship  of 
pride  to  madness,  brings  to  mind  also  that  mania  was  the 
end  of  the  wild  life  of  his  uncle  Cleomenes  I.  Pausanias 
not  merely  disgusted  the  lonians  by  injurious  treatment  in 
their  intercourse  with  the  Spartans,  but  even  the  Athenians 
and  Peloponnesian  allies  by  his  superciliousness,  and  at  last 
took  to  courses  that  put  him  in  the  wrong  as  much  with  his 
own  countrymen  as  with  the  other  Greeks,  and  threw  him 
into  desperate  intrigues  with  the  Persians  which,  for  aught 
we  can  discern,  were  alike  hopeless  and  senseless  from  the 
very  beginning. 

The  discontent  of  the  Ionian  allies  had  been  growing  for 
some  time.  Unfavourably  as  the  lonians  of  Asia  Minor 
contrast  with  those  of  Attica,  even  to  an  Athenian  like 
Aeschylus,  they  were  doubtless  held  still  cheaper  in  respect  of 
strength  and  discipline  by  the  Spartans  ;  but  they  were  now 
under  all  the  excitement  of  being  consciously  committed  to  a 

M 


162  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

perilous  quarrel,  were  inspired  by  the  sense  of  newly-recovered 
liberty,  and  by  emulation  with  the  marvellous  energy  of 
the  Athenians,  whom  they  were  proud  to  claim  as  their 
relations,  whether  accepted  as  such  with  entire  cordiality 
or  anot.  To  the  lonians  —  the  more  so  because  of  their 
recent  enfranchisement — it  was  galling  beyond  endurance 
to  be  still  treated  like  slaves ;  to  be  interfered  with  in 
watering  and  foraging  parties,  till  the  Lacedaemonians  gave 
leave  after  taking  precedence  ;  to  be  subjected  to  arbitrary 
punishments  such  as  stripes,  or  picketing  to  iron  anchors, 
and  even  to  blows  from  subordinates.  To  Dorians  from 
Peloponnesus  a  much  smaller  share  of  such  treatment  would 
be  intolerable.  Expostulation  was  vain,  and  men  in  com- 
mand, up  to  Aristides  himself,  who  here  as  at  Plataea  might 
claim  the  privilege  of  an  associate  in  generalship,  were  refused 
audience,  and  put  off  with  studied  airs  of  preoccupation  or 
more  insulting  disregard.  An  independent  incident,  of  tragic 
and  shameful  interest,  brought  on  a  crisis.  Cleonice,  a 
daughter  of  a  noble  Byzantine  family,  was  so  unfortunate  as 
to  attract  the  notice  of  Pausanias,  and  he  forced  her  parents 
by  threats  to  surrender  her  to  his  desires.  He  had  fallen 
asleep  when  she  was  introduced  into  his  apartment ;  aroused 
by  the  sudden  noise  of  a  falling  lamp,  he  seized  the  sword 
that  was  beside  him,  and,  under  the  momentary  impression  of 
an  enemy  being  near,  struck  out  in  the  unexpected  darkness, 
to  find  that  he  had  slain  the  unhappy  girl,  who  was  ap- 
proaching his  bed  in  shame  and  terror.  It  was  believed 
afterwards  that  her  eidolon  constantly  haunted  him  at  night, 
repeating  a  warning  and  summoning  hexameter ;  that,  in 
distress  and  excitement,  he  resorted  to  every  form  of  atoning 
purification,  and  to  mystical  rites  at  Heraclea  and  Phigaleia, 
for  evoking  her  soul  and  deprecating  its  anger ;  but  only  to 
obtain  a  response  which  sent  him  back  once  more  to  Sparta 
with  promise  of  speedy  conclusion  to  his  miseries — a  con- 

1  Herod,  i.  143. 


xii.]  TREASON  OF  PAUSANIAS.  163 

elusion  that  did  speedily  arrive,  but  only  in  a  miserable  death. 
The  tale,  says  l  Plutarch,  has  been  told  by  many;  it  was  to  be 
told  after  him  again  by  the  traveller  Pausanias,  who  had  it, 
he  seems  to  suppose,  as  an  unrecorded  anecdote,  from  the  lips 
of  a  2  Byzantine. 

It  was  on  3  this  that  many  of  the  Peloponnesian  allies  gave 
up  and  returned  home,  to  report  how  Sparta  was  being  dis- 
graced and  the  harmony  of  the  Hellenic  confederation  endan- 
gered. 

Mistrust  still  more  serious  soon  arose,  to  add  alarm  to  the 
indignation  of  the  recently  emancipated  lonians.  The  satrapy 
of  Dascylitis,  adjacent  to  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Hellespont, 
was  held  by  the  Achaemenid  Megabates,  who  under  Darius 
had  been  appointed  to  co-operate  with  Aristagoras  for  the 
subjugation  of  the  4  Cyclades,  but,  quarrelling  with  his  asso- 
ciate, gave  treacherous  information  to  the  Naxians,  and  so 
frustrated  the  enterprise.  From  whatever  suspicious  cir- 
cumstances, the  report  got  about  that  Pausanias  was  nego- 
tiating for  an  alliance  with  his  daughter,  in  combination 
with  a  treasonable  scheme  against  Hellas.  This  version  of 
his  designs  is  referred  to  by  Herodotus  as  merely  a  re- 
port; but  Thucydides  could  quote  documents  that  came  to 
light  at  a  later  date — not  later  however  than  when  Hero- 
dotus was  writing  —  which  proved  that  Pausanias  aimed 
higher,  and  indeed  was  on  his  guard  against  the  treacherous 
nature  which  had  once  before  been  fatal  to  another  Hellenic 
traitor.  He  took  an  opportunity  of  committing  the  charge 
of  Byzantium  to  a  certain  Gongylus,  an  Eretrian,  together 
with  the  custody  of  the  prisoners,  including  some  connections 
and  relatives  of  the  Great  King,  and  arranged  that  he  should 
liberate  them  without  communication  with  the  allies,  and 
proceed  in  person  to  the  court  of  Xerxes,  bearing  a  letter 
in  terms  thus  literally  translated:  —  'Pausanias,  general  of 

1  Plut.  Cimon,  6.  3  Pans.  iii.  17.  8. 

3  Plut.  ibid.  *  Herod,  v.  32. 

M  2 


164  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Sparta,  out  of  a  desire  to  gratify  thee,  sends  to  tliee  these 
men,  whom  he  took  captive  in  war ;  and  I  am  moreover 
minded,  if  it  is  also  agreeable  to  yourself,  to  marry  your 
daughter,  and  to  bring  into  subjection  to  you  both  Sparta 
and  the  rest  of  Hellas.  If  then  you  are  at  all  favourable 
to  this,  send  down  to  the  sea  a  man  wJio  may  be  relied  on, 
through  whom  I  may  communicate  hereafter.' 

The  treachery  of  Gongylus  to  Hellas  was  gratefully  re- 
cognised by  Xerxes;  such  a  service  was  least  of  all  to  be 
expected  from  an  Eretrian,  whose  country  had  been  so  merci- 
lessly treated  by  Datis  and  Artaphernes.  He  was  rewarded  by 
the  lordship — in  effect  hereditary — of  four  towns  in  Aeolis, 
near  those  which  had  been  consigned  to  the  equally  un- 
patriotic Demaratus,  and  where  Xenophon  knew  of  the  de- 
scendants of  both  as  still  established. 

The  proposal  to  negotiate  was  at  once  warmly  embraced 
by  Xerxes ;  it  confirmed  all  that  Artabazus  had  ever  impressed 
upon  him  as  to  the  true  policy  for  subjecting  Greece,  the 
policy  which  he  had  advocated  all  along,  and  which  Mar- 
donius  had  overruled  with  such  fatal  consequences.  In  all 
haste  he  sent  down  Artabazus  himself  to  supersede  Mega- 
bates,  with  authority  to  forward  a  letter  sealed  with  the  royal 
signet  to  Pausanias,  and  instructions  to  co-operate  with  him  in 
whatever  he  might  propose  to  the  best  effect  and  in  all  good 
faith.  The  reply  so  transmitted  was  in  these  terms : — '  Thus 
says  King  Xerxes  to  Pausanias.  The  act  of  kindness  towards 
the  men  whom  you  have  preserved  for  me  from  Byzantium 
beyond  the  sea,  is  laid  up  for  you  in  record  in  our  house 
for  all  time ;  and  I  am  gratified  by  your  further  communica- 
tions. Let  neither  night  nor  day  interfere  to  cause  you  to 
relax  in  setting  about  what  you  promise  me;  and  be  not 
hindered  for  any  expenditure  of  gold  or  silver,  nor  for 
abundant  forces  in  whatever  direction  they  may  be  required ; 
and  deal  in  full  confidence  with  Artabazus,  a  man  of  worth, 
whom  I  have  sent  to  you,  in  what  is  both  my  business  and 


xii.]  ALARM  OF  THE  IONIANS.  165 

your  own,  as  will  be  best  and  most  honourable  for  both  of  us.' 
The  custom  here  alluded  to,  of  the  formal  registry  of  the 
king's  friends,  is  frequently  l  mentioned. 

The  receipt  of  this  letter  from  the  Great  King  seems  to 
have  fairly  turned  the  head  of  the  Spartan  regent ;  and  if  not 
the  more,  certainly  none  the  less,  from  the  earnest  of  a  large 
treasure  conveyed  to  him  by  Artabazus  for  employment  in 
2  corruption.  He  at  once  assumed  the  state  and  the  arbi- 
trary airs  of  a  Persian  satrap.  He  had  already  abused  the 
dignity  which  the  Greeks  could  not  but  willingly  concede  to 
the  head  of  Sparta  in  any  case,  and  still  more  to  the  victor 
of  Plataea  ;  but  he  now  assumed  the  ensigns  of  Persian 
rank  in  dress  and  attendance,  and  adopted  in  serious  in- 
fatuation the  display  which  in  the  Boeotian  camp  he  had 
sarcastically  contrasted  with  Spartan  simplicity.  He  left 
Byzantium  to  make  a  round  through  Thrace,  where  there 
were  still  considerable  Persian  garrisons,  even  as  near  as  in 
the  Chersonesus,  with  which  the  royal  signet  would  probably 
enable  him  to  open  communications.  On  his  return  he  ap- 
peared with  a  body-guard  of  Medes  and  Egyptians,  had  his 
table  served  with  all  the  pomp  and  apparatus  of  Persia,  and 
could  not  restrain  himself  from  giving  hints,  or  rather  notice, 
in  trivial  matters,  of  the  designs  that  he  was  harbouring  on 
a  larger  3  scale.  But  he  returned  to  find  the  confederates  and 
their  commanders  by  no  means  in  the  merely  irritated  and 
unsettled  state  in  which  he  left  them.  Suspicions  were 
abroad,  and  general  alarm  at  common  danger  had  ripened 
into  a  common  understanding  as  to  the  means  by  which 
it  might  be  averted.  Alike  in  demeanour  and  administra- 
tion, the  Athenian  commander  Aristides  was  in  absolute 
contrast  to  Pausanias  —  as  the  steadfast  to  the  fitful,  the 
deliberate  to  the  capricious,  the  just  to  the  arbitrary,  the 

1  Herod,  iii.  140,  viii.  85;  Diod.  S.  xvii.  14;  Joseph.  Antiq.  xi.  6;  Esther, 
ii.  23,  vi.  i. 

3  Diod.  xi.  44.  3  Thuc.  i.  130. 


166  U I  STORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

truly  dignified  to  all  that  was  supercilious,  offensive,  and  arro- 
gant. The  lonians  had  had  warning  before  the  battle  of 
Mycale,  and  also  at  the  siege  of  Sestos,  that  Sparta  was 
less  to  be  relied  on  than  Athens  for  rendering  such  aid  as 
they  required  to  maintain  their  newly-recovered  independ- 
ence ;  and  the  temper  of  the  Athenian  commander  Aristides, 
and  of  Cimon  also  if,  as  is  possible  from  the  tenor  of  some 
accounts,  he  was  already  associated  with  him,  gave  assurance 
that  such  aid  would  be  rendered  with  a  good  faith  and 
Hellenic  loyalty,  which  plainly  could  no  longer  be  counted 
on  from  Pausanias. 

The  crisis  must  have  seemed  dangerous  to  Aristides  him- 
self; and  there  was  every  reason  for  his  readily  entertaining 
the  advances  of  the  insular  and  Asian  allies,  who  were  now 
prepared  definitely  to  transfer  their  recognition  of  leadership 
from  Sparta  to  Athens.  It  was  only  from  patriotic  con- 
cession to  the  predilections  of  the  confederacy — predilec- 
tions rooted  in  immemorial  tradition — that  Athens  had  con- 
ceded the  leadership  to  Sparta  at  sea  also,  where  her  own 
preponderant  naval  power  gave  her  a  fair  claim  to  pre- 
eminence. This  preponderance  had  been  gradually  becoming 
still  more  decided,  and  no  one  knew  better  than  Aristides 
the  future  which  Themistocles  was  at  this  very  time  pre- 
paring for  it,  by  his  improvements  at  the  Piraeus.  The 
Peloponnesian  allies,  the  peculiar  adherents  of  Sparta,  not 
sorry  perhaps  (as  at  Sestos)  to  have  again  an  excuse  for 
giving  up,  had  already  retired  in  disgust ;  those  that  re- 
mained were  the  lonians,  whom  Athens  had  already  pro- 
tected against  Spartan  interference,  by  assertion  of  her 
metropolitan  claims,  and  whose  continued  zeal  could  be 
relied  on.  The  same  tradition  of  colonial  dependence  was 
now  willingly  urged  by  the  lonians  themselves;  and  in  truth, 
whatever  change  of  character  may  have  supervened  from 
foreign  admixture  and  under  Asian  skies,  there  was  still 
enough  of  original  tribal  character  remaining  to  account 


xii.]  PA  USANIAS  AND  ARISTIDES.  167 

for  a  very  lively  sympathy  of  relationship,  especially  as 
compared  with  Spartan  Dorians.  The  heroic  traditions  of 
these  cities,  and  their  conspicuous  monuments,  kept  ever  in 
mind  that  their  reputed  founders  were  of  the  old  royal  race 
of  Athens,  or  had  carried  from  its  prytaneum  their  sacred 
1  fire ;  and  the  motives  involved  in  these  associations  were 
ever  most  powerful  with  the  Greeks  at  periods  of  excited 
enthusiasm. 

The  signs  of  relaxation  in  Spartan  energy,  and  worse 
still,  of  a  tendency  to  corruption  or  treachery  in  her 
most  powerful  leader,  were  thus  declaring  themselves  at 
a  time  when  Athenian  energy,  so  far  from  exhaustion, 
was  in  the  first  flush,  of  sanguine  resolution.  It  is  beside 
the  question  at  such  a  point  to  consider  whether  Aristides 
was  most  influenced  in  his  policy  by  ambition  for  the  power 
of  Athens,  or  concern  for  the  defence  of  Hellas.  His  course 
could  only  be  the  same  in  either  case  ;  much  indeed  remained 
to  be  done  to  secure  the  result  of  past  victories  for  the 
benefit  of  Hellas  at  large,  and  only  by  Athens  coming 
frankly  and  boldly  to  the  front  could  this  security  be  taken. 
It  was  on  the  occasion  of  a  distinct  insult  being  offered  to 
Aristides  by  Pausanias,  that  an  opportunity  seemed  afforded 
to  the  Ionian  malcontents  for  gaining  him  over  to  a  policy 
which  he  had  resolved  not  to  precipitate,  nor  even  to  appear 
to  invite.  On  his  seeking  a  hearing  from  Pausanias  for 
expostulations,  and  with  intent  to  inform  him  of  the  offen- 
siveness  of  his  conduct,  he  had  been  superciliously  put 
off;  the  mimic  satrap  would  not  listen  to  him,  would 
scarcely  look  at  him  ;  he  was  not  at  leisure.  ^Counting  on 
his  indignation,  the  captains  and  generals  of  the  allies, 
chiefly  of  the  Chians,  Samians,  and  Aeolian  Lesbians,  made 
a  direct  proposal  that  he  should  assume  the  leadership 
(kegemonia),  and  thus  attach  to  himself  the  allies,  who 

1  Herod,  i.  146. 


168  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

had  long-  been  anxious  to  give  up  the  Spartans  and  would 
at  once  range  themselves  with  the  Athenians.  They  quitted 
the  interview  however  without  having  elicited  either  pledge 
or  proposal  from  Aristides  to  undertake  what  was  suggested 
to  him  ;  and  yet  every  word  he  had  said  was  confirmatory 
of  the  pressing  necessity  that  something  should  be  done, 
of  the  justice  of  their  complaints,  of  the  zeal  and  good- 
will of  the  Athenians,  and  even  of  the  principles  of  the 
best  settlement  in  the  event  of  such  a  change.  He  was 
only  cool  in  his  expressions,  when  he  might  have  been 
expected  to  declare  his  reliance  on  the  resolution  of  the 
malcontents  to  encounter  the  consequences  of  a  quarrel. 
There  were  some  among  them  who  could  interpret  the 
demand  which  this  attitude  conveyed,  and  Ouliades  of  Samos 
and  Antagoras  of  Chios  —  it  is  noteworthy  that  Aeolian 
Lesbos  is  not  even  yet  included — resolved  to  commit  them- 
selves boldly  to  an  irreparable  breach,  in  confidence  that  the 
rest  would  follow  them, 'and  that  Aristides  might  be  relied  on 
to  interpose  between  them  and  the  Spartans  if  violence  were 
1  attempted,  and  so  give  permanence  to  an  alliance  already 
approved  in  principle.  As  the  general's  trireme  was  moving 
in  advance  on  the  waters  of  Byzantium,  the  conspirators — 
so  they  are  called — on  a  sudden  brought  their  own  vessels 
wantonly  into  collision  with  it,  catching  it  violently  amid- 
ships. Pausanias  came  forward  in  a  rage,  and  seeing  who 
were  the  offenders,  vented  a  threat  that  the  time  would 
not  be  long  before  he  would  show  them  that  it  was  not 
his  ship  that  they  had  damaged,  but  their  own  native 
countries.  They  bluntly  retorted  '  that  it  was  high  time 
for  him  to  be  gone  ;  and  he  might  be  thankful  that  the 
recollection  of  his  connection  with  the  Greeks  in  the  Pla- 
taean  victory  restrained  them  from  inflicting  the  punishment 
he  merited.'  There  and  then  they  moved  off  to  range 

1  Thucyd.  i.  96 ;  Plut.  Arist.  33. 


xii.]        ATHENIAN  LEADERSHIP  OF  HELLAS.         169 

their  squadrons  in  station  with  the  Athenians,  and  were 
joined  at  once  by  all  the  allies  but  the  Peloponnesians. 
Such  was  the  first  decisive  rupture  which  marked  the  line 
which,  for  such  important  consequences,  whether  in  emula- 
tion or  collision,  was  to  separate  the  Ionian  and  Dorian 
confederations. 

It  was  precisely  at  this  juncture  that  further  complica- 
tions were  relieved,  by  the  recall  of  Pausanias  to  Lacedaemon, 
there  to  reply  to  charges  of  wrongs  against  individuals,  which 
in  various  instances  were  established.  On  more  serious  public 
charges  he  obtained  acquittal ;  but  still  too  much  was  noto- 
rious of  how  he  had  comported  himself  in  his  appointment 
of  general,  as  if  it  were  a  tyranny,  and  too  much  was  suspected 
of  his  inclination  to  Medism,  to  allow  of  his  being  again 
entrusted  with  command. 

It  was  apparently  at  the  approach  of  winter  477  B.C. 
that  he  returned  home,  and  his  fleet  with  him ;  it  would 
then  be,  at  the  earliest,  in  the  spring  of  476  B.C.  that 
Dorcis  was  sent  out  in  his  stead,  associated  with  others, 
and  with  only  an  inconsiderable  force.  Dorcis  found  on 
his  arrival,  as  under  these  circumstances  was  probably  anti- 
cipated, that  the  resolution  of  the  seceding  allies  to  acquiesce 
no  longer  in  Spartan  leadership  was  fixed ;  and  after  a  short 
stay  he  returned  home,  '  nor  did  the  Lacedaemonians  after- 
wards send  out  other  commanders.'  The  example  of  Pausanias, 
following  so  closely  on  that  of  Leotychides,  alarmed  them 
as  to  the  corrupting  effect  of  prolonged  absence  from  the 
discipline  of  home;  and  they  were  in  truth  well  content 
to  be  rid  of  the  Median  war,  in  which  they  had  only 
taken  part  at  all  when  it  approached  their  doors,  and 
to  leave  the  distant  prosecution  of  it  in  the  hands  of 
the  Athenians,  who  were  not  only  fully  as  competent  to 
conduct  it,  but  were  disposed — especially  when  so  engaged — 
to  remain  on  good  terms  with  themselves.  According  to 
Plutarch  they  were  the  better  satisfied  with  this  course 


170  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

from  the  conciliatory  assurances,  and  if  so,  we  must  infer 
from  the  growing  political  influence,  of  Cimon.  Diodorus 
dates  this  revolution  in  the  archonship  of  Adeimantus  = 
477-6  B.C. 

Such  was  the  commencement  of  the  hegemony,  or  leader- 
ship of  Hellas,  by  the  Athenians. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

DORIAN    AND   IONIAN    GENIUS   AND   GENEALOGY. 

THE  sternness  and  stability  of  the  peculiar  institutions 
of  Sparta  had  in  the  course  of  years  produced  a  national 
character  so  distinctive,  that  her  statesmen  and  citizens 
might  seem  to  stand  in  almost  as  strong  a  contrast,  in 
respect  of  maxims  and  manners,  and  even  language,  to 
other  Dorians,  as  the  Dorians  at  large  did  to  the  lonians. 
The  Dorian  colonists  of  the  shores  of  the  Euxine,  of  Rhodes 
and  Cos  and  the  borders  of  the  archipelago,  of  Sicily  and 
Italy,  were  drawn  of  necessity  into  habits  of  general  inter- 
course and  free  communication  with  foreigners  and  aliens, 
quite  unknown  to  the  Spartans,  secluded  as  they  were  from 
even  the  stimulant  proximity  of  an  Ionian  frontier.  Commerce 
was  fostered  at  Dorian  Corinth,  with  all  its  consequences 
of  foreign  haunt  and  intercourse,  and  luxury  in  the  coarser 
forms  affected  by  commercial  wealth;  and  innovation  and 
invention  were  promoted  there  as  eagerly  as  they  were 
repressed  at  l  Lacedaemon.  At  Corinth,  as  in  her  western 
colonies,  the  plastic  and  the  graphic  arts  flourished  with  a 
vivacity  that  communicated  no  trifling  reaction  to  Ionian 
genius ;  and  Dorian  Megara,  besides  being  the  home  of 
such  a  master  of  elegiac  poetry  as  Theognis,  was  the 

1  Pindar,  01.  xiii.  15;  Thucyd.  i.  13,  69;  Herod,  ii.  168. 


172  IIISTOliY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

very  birth-place  of  imaginative  Comedy,  of  which  Dorian 
Syracuse  was  the  nursing-mother.  There  is  every  presump- 
tion that  this  contrast,  at  least  in  respect  of  its  strongest 
lines,  was  superinduced  mainly  by  the  special  legislation  of 
Sparta,  which,  overstrained  by  the  police  requirements  of 
its  institution  of  helotry  and  in  the  interest  of  military 
prowess,  carried  more  than  military  discipline  into  every 
detail  of  domestic  life. 

Lacedaemon  anterior  to  the  Dorian  conquest  is  presented 
in  the  Homeric  legend  as  a  centre  of  refinement,  or  indeed  of 
luxury ;  and  the  picture  is  by  no  means  extravagantly  out 
of  harmony  with  such  intimations  as  reach  us  of  its  earlier 
Doric  times,  in  no  sparse  notices  of  archaic  Spartan  monu- 
ments and  art  —  of  Spartan  sculpture,  and  poetry,  and 
music. 

Bathycles,  Terpander,  Thaletas,  Alcman,  Tyrtaeus,  if  they 
were  not  Spartans,  are  so  associated  in  fame  with  Sparta, 
as  to  prove  that  appreciation  for  art  lived  on  with  consider- 
able pertinacity  even  after  the  germs  of  the  native  faculty  for 
creation  had  been  ruthlessly  trodden  down  and  stamped  out. 
In  later  days  these  proper  Hellenic  characteristics  only 
appear  in  a  lively  devotion  to  certain  religious  and  athletic 
festivals  and  their  accompaniments ;  beyond  this  it  seems 
left  to  predominating  political  power  alone  to  constitute  a 
bond  between  Sparta  and  the  general  Hellenic  community, 
and  to  preserve  it  from  forfeiting  in  its  isolation  all  sympathy 
with  the  busy  related  tribes  beyond  its  jealously-guarded 
barrier.  This  predominance,  however,  was  during  a  long 
period  sustained  and  decisive,  uncontested  and  unquestioned ; 
it  was  asserted  intermittently,  but  still  on  occasion  with  such 
promptitude  and  force,  as  to  give  the  impression  of  jealous 
watchfulness  as  well  as  power.  The  larger  Dorian  Hellas 
in  consequence,  for  all  its  varied  qualifications  and  diver- 
gences, never  renounced  a  traditional  regard  for  Sparta  as 
chief  of  the  Dorian  race,  and  peculiarly  as  chief  and  leader 


xiii.]  AEOLISM  AS  PRIMAEVAL.  173 

on  all  occasions  of  rivalry  and  complication  with  the  other 
great  Hellenic  section — the  Ionian. 

The  deepest  line  of  division  that  we  know  among-  the 
people  who  in  historical  times  were  designated  collectively 
as  Hellenes,  runs  between  these  Doric  and  Ionic  sections ; 
another  line  divides  the  Aeolians  from  both,  but  much  less 
decisively,  for  among  the  varied  and  widely-spread  tribes 
of  Aeolian  descent  and  dialect  and  characteristics,  while 
those  on  the  west  of  the  Aegean  approximated  very  nearly 
to  the  most  distinctive  Dorians,  there  were  others  in  the 
islands  and  colonies  eastward  that  exhibited  many  signs  of 
Ionian  sympathy.  This  approach,  however,  of  Aeolians  to 
lonians  is  ambiguous  and  accidental,  and  historical  indica- 
tions go  far  to  show  that  their  distinction  was  all  but 
primitive ;  that  Dorism  developed  independently  from  an 
Aeolism  with  which  lonism  was  already  in  marked  contrast, 
at  some  point  of  earlier  departure,  rather  than  that  lonism 
and  Dorism  together  were  collateral  shoots  from  an  original 
main  Aeolic  stem. 

Strabo,  who,  late  as  he  is,  merits  even  on  these  points 
especial  attention,  remarks,  with  his  usual  good  sense,  that 
the  earlier  divisions  of  the  tribes  of  Hellas  must  needs 
have  followed,  and  may  be  tracked  by  the  broader  distinc- 
tions of  dialect,  the  innumerable  minor  subdivisions  being 
left  aside.  Under  this  guidance  four  families  are  obtained, 
which  however,  by  the  derivation  that  he  points  out,  may 
again  be  reduced  to  a  primitive  pair,  the  Ionian  dialect 
being  virtually  the  same  as  the  old  Attic,  and  the  Dorian 
not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  old  Aeolic.  The  specialties 
of  Attic  speech  of  the  fully-developed  period  were  thus  devia- 
tions from  primitive  Ionian,  and  those  of  Sparta  from  primi- 
tive Aeolian. 

According  to  this  view,  the  Ionian  and  Aeolian  dialects 
were  in  contrast  from  the  beginning,  and  were  continued 
among  certain  sections  of  the  race  with  less  change  in  their 


174  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

forms,  though  still  by  no  means  exempt  from  slighter  varia- 
tions, than  when  they  came  to  be  spoken  in  the  predominant 
states  of  Attica  and  Sparta.  Modern  criticism  has  eluci- 
dated in  detail  the  diversities  of  Attic  and  Ionic,  as  well 
as  of  Lesbian  Boeotian  and  Thessalian  Aeolic,  and  the  purer 
1  Doric. 

The  geographer  supports  his  analysis  by  the  remark  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Attica  at  an  early  period  were  recognised 
as  lonians,  and  that  the  colonies  in  Asia  who  used  the  Ionic 
dialect  were  notoriously  of  Attic  origin.  Even  up  to  his 
own  time,  he  proceeds,  all  the  Hellenes  without  the  Isthmus, 
except  the  Athenians,  Megarians,  and  the  Dorians  about 
Mount  Parnassus,  were  still  called  Aeolians,  and  the  dis- 
tricts within  the  Isthmus  were  also  previously  in  complete 
Aeolian  occupation,  the  Homeric  Achaeans  having  been  an 
Aeolian  tribe.  Then  two  interferences  took  place ;  a  popu- 
lation from  Attica,  who,  according  to  his  own  account,  were 
already  known  as  lonians,  established  themselves  in  the 
district  along  the  Corinthian  gulf,  that  was  afterwards  the 
best-known  Achaia,  but  only  to  be  driven  back  again  to 
Attica  by  Achaians,  when  the  latter  were  expelled  from 
their  more  easterly  seats  in  Peloponnesus  by  the  intrusive 
Dorians.  The  Aeolic  dialect,  continues  Strabo,  was  still 
retained  after  this  revolution  by  the  Eleians,  who  had  sided 
with  the  invaders,  and  by  the  Arcadians,  who,  safe  among 
their  mountains,  defied  them ;  though  even  among  these, 
despite  their  political  independence,  there  was  a  sympathetic 
tendency  for  the  dialect  of  the  dominant  tribe  to  prevail. 
In  the  case  of  subjection,  as  might  be  expected,  the  dialectic 
modification  was  decisive ;  even  as  Herodotus  witnesses,  that 
lonians  who  were  left  isolated  in  Cynouria  and  fell  into 
subjection  to  Argos  became  ultimately  Dorised.  Allowing 
for  these  influences,  it  is  less  surprising  that  in  Strabo's  time 

1  Grote,  ii.  p.  452. 


XIIL]          IONISM  AND  DORISM  DERIVATIVE.  175 

every  town  in  Peloponnesus  Dorised,  than  that  most  of  them 
should  still  retain  some  dialectic  peculiarities  of  their  own. 

The  Dorians  then,  according  to  the  view  of  Strabo,  had 
already  acquired  their  characteristic  dialect,  as  well  as  certain 
peculiarities  of  manners  qualifying  their  primitive  Aeolism, 
before  this  invasion,  and  he  ascribes  these  changes  to  the 
special  climatic  and  social  influences  that  affect  a  tribe  in 
secluded  and  crowded  occupation  of  a  bleak  and  rugged 
territory.  Upon  this  view  no  distinctive  Dorism  is  recog- 
nised prior  to  the  residence  of  a  teeming  population  in  the 
rough  and  limited  Doris.  But  Doris  about  Parnassus  was 
only  the  late  seat  of  a  tribe  that  had  previously  had  many 
migrations.  Herodotus,  who  speaks  with  an  absence  of  hesi- 
tation that  carries  much  authority,  from  its  apparent  harmony 
with  uncontested  traditions,  knows  of  it  first  as  occupying 
Phthiotis,  to  the  south  of  the  Pagasaean  gulf,  at  that  time 
conterminal  with  the  Thessalian  l  Pelasgi,  and  including  the 
Hellas  proper  of  Homer ;  and,  in  fact,  in  close  proximity  to 
the  original,  or  at  least  the  primaeval  Achaia.  Here  it  would 
be  in  possession  of  a  sea-board,  and  hence  might  perhaps  have 
extended  the  early  Dorian  influence,  that  is  afterwards  declared 
so  powerfully,  to  Rhodes  and  to  Crete.  Hestiaeotis,  which 
Herodotus  bounds  by  Ossa  and  Olympus,  is  given  as  the  next 
seat  of  the  tribe ;  expelled  hence  by  Cadmeians,  who  seem  to 
be  represented  in  mythus  by  the  eponymn  Cadmus,  and 
migrating  from  Thebes  to  Illyria,  they  occupy  Pindus  under 
the  title  of  Macedonians,  thence  pass  southward  to  Dryopis, 
and  so  at  last  move  across  the  Crissaean  gulf  to  their  final 
establishment  in  Peloponnesus.  Such  a  story  is  by  no  means 
too  wild  for  a  period  of  general  unsettlement,  and  implies 
a  series  of  warlike  enterprises  and  collisions,  by  a  vigorous 
tribe  under  a  succession  of  vigorous  leaders,  and  tribal  co- 
hesion of  a  fibre  that,  in  view  of  numerous  parallels  in  later 

1  Herod,  i.  57. 


176  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

history,  it  would  be  presumptuous  to  disallow ;  but  we  can 
no  more  circumscribe  the  regions  successively  taken  possession 
of,  than  we  can  limit  times  of  occupation,  or  the  possible 
association  and  reaction  of  other  tribes  as  such  events  went  on. 

This  broad  implication  of  Strabo,  that  the  grand  distinction 
between  Dorians  and  lonians  was  but  inherited  from  a  prior, 
and  equally  marked,  distinction  between  Ionian  and  Aeolian 
(the  Doric  Spartans  being  to  primitive  Aeolians  what  the 
Athenians  were  to  primitive  lonians),  is  matched  by  as  broad, 
and  at  first  sight  a  more  surprising,  assertion  of  Herodotus, 
that  the  Athenians  as  a  Pelasgic  race  were  contrasted  in  origin 
with  the  Lacedaemonians  as  a  Hellenic  one.  Interpreted 
strictly  and  literally,  this  statement  would  exclude  the  Athe- 
nians and  lonians  generally  from  the  list  of  Hellenes,  and  so 
far  would  agree  with  his  habit  of  speaking  of  Dorians  as 
specifically  Hellenes ;  these  Aeolo- Hellenic  populations  would 
confront  Pelasgico-Ionic  in  the  ultimate  bifurcation  of  the 
race;  but  it  is  manifest  that  he  would  have  admitted  no 
such  extreme  interpretation  of  his  statement,  and  we  must 
compare  other  evidence  before  we  pretend  to  extract  from 
what  he  here  seems  to  say,  what  he  can  only  in  reasonable 
consistency  mean. 

Pelasgic  is  as  widely  distributed  an  appellative  in  legend 
as  Aeolian  in  history,  and  though  we  are  not  justified  in 
pronouncing  that  they  are  convertible  with  only  a  difference 
of  epoch,  the  geographical  range  and  the  incidents  ascribed 
to  both  are  curiously  similar.  Thessaly  northwards  is  Pelas- 
gic, is  Pelasgiotis,  as  all  Peloponnesus  on  the  J  south,  in 
legends  that  it  were  vain  to  set  aside  as  nugatory,  and  so 
are  the  islands  and  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Aegean.  Two 
views  in  consequence  are  open  to  us  ;  either  that  the  Aeolians 
superseded  alien  Pelasgi,  or,  more  probably,  that  they  were 
a  vigorous  overgrowth  from  their  midst — a  section  taking 

1  Eurip.,  Iphiy.  Aid.  1473. 


XIIL]          ATHENS  PELASGIC  OR  HELLENIC.  177 

such  a  start  as  the  Dorians  afterwards  took  from  amongst 
themselves;  and  then,  that  the  lonians  were  another,  and 
possibly  a  later,  that  made  a  separate  leading  shoot  upon  a 
different  congenial  soil  and  under  contrasted  climatic  and 
social  influences.  The  first  of  these  tribes  that  rose  to 
a  self  -  consciousness  of  independence  and  superior  power 
might  well  be  apt  to  consider  the  differences  of  the  races 
left  behind  as  little  worth  regard.  '  When  Hellas  was 
Pelasgic,'  says  Herodotus,  '  the  Athenians  were  distinguished 
as  Cranai  Pelasgi ;'  he  marks  other  epochs  in  their  history 
by  the  titles  of  Cecropidae,  Athenians,  and,  still  later, 
lonians ;  each  change  being  attached  to  a  change  of  king 
or  leader — Cecrops,  Erechtheus,  Ion — in  no  case  to  an  expul- 
sion from  the  country  of  the  tribe  already  in  possession. 
With  perfect  consistency  so  far,  he  again  affirms  that  the 
lonians  of  Asia  were  a  Pelasgic  race,  that  so  also  were  the 
lonians  of  the  Cyclades,  and  that  the  Ionian  colonies  were 
founded  by  a  population  which  had  been  expelled  by  the 
Achaians  from  Peloponnesus,  where  they  were  called  Aegia- 
lian  1  Pelasgi.  Strabo,  we  have  seen,  asserts  that  it  was  from 
Attica  that  they  had  originally  passed  to  Aegialea,  and  calls 
them  even  then  lonians,  which  agrees  with  the  story  of 
the  settlement  of  lonians  at  Cynouria,  where  they  remained 
to  be  subject  to  the  Dorian  Argives. 

But  these  statements  appear  to  involve  the  consequence 
that  if  the  Athenian  race  was  Pelasgic,  the  Pelasgic  must 
have  been  Hellenic;  which  would  contradict  the  principle 
of  the  distinction  drawn  by  Herodotus  himself.  He  is 
indeed  in  the  difficulty  that  the  Pelasgi  appeared  to  have 
spoken  a  barbarous  tongue,  whereas  the  Athenians  spoke 
the  Hellenic;  but  he  still  does  not  doubt  that  they  'broke 
off'  from  the  main  Pelasgic  stem,  and  is  therefore  driven  to 
conclude  that  they  changed  their  language  on  becoming 

1  Herod,  vii.  94,  1^5. 

N 


178  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Hellenised.  In  any  case  the  opinion  of  Herodotus  goes  for 
very  little  in  a  question  as  to  fundamental  difference  of 
language,  and  cannot  be  taken  to  establish  a  positive  diver- 
sity of  race  between  tribes  that  proved  themselves  so  happily 
susceptible  of  reciprocal  influence. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  throughout  that  the  name 
Pelasgian,  like  Aeolian  afterwards,  in  all  probability  com- 
prised a  diversity  of  sub-tribes  which,  even  if  upon  a  general 
level  of  civilisation  and  •  relationship,  might  easily  differ 
among  themselves  as  widely  at  least  as  Celts,  Gaels,  and 
Cymri,  in  tendencies,  dispositions,  capacities,  and  suscepti- 
bilities of  influence,  good  or  evil. 

There  is  temptation  to  infer  that  Herodotus,  being  possessed 
by  the  Athenian  claim  to  be  autochthonous — to  have  never 
immigrated  into  their  country  and  never  to  have  been 
expelled — and  at  the  same  time  by  the  persistent  tradition 
of  the  range  of  the  Pelasgic  period,  merely  adopted  as  a 
necessary  conclusion  that  the  Athenians  so  unremoved  must 
be  Pelasgians,  and  shut  his  eyes  to  inconsistent  conse- 
quences.  But  how  evanescent  an  ethnological  distinction 
he  was  prepared  to  accept  as  involved  in  Pelasgic  origin 
appears  in  the  fact  of  his  noticing,  without  serious  demur, 
that  the  Hellenes  charged  such  an  origin  even  upon  the 
Aeolians  of  the  l  archipelago ;  whence  it  seems  clear  that, 
according  to  his  conception,  Pelasgism  might  well  lie  deep 
down  at  the  basis  of  both  Aeolian  and  Ionian  antiquity. 

Such  a  charge  could  mean  no  more  than  that  settlers 
of  purer  race  and  more  imbued  with  the  nobler  culture 
that  was  recognised  as  characteristic  of  a  new  epoch  had 
coalesced  with  a  comparatively,  but  only  comparative! v, 
alien  population.  The  growth  and  assumption  of  national 
character  by  the  nations  of  modern  Europe  after  the  break 
up  of  the  Roman  empire  furnish  many  examples  of  dis- 

1  HcroU   vii.  94,  95. 


xiii.]         ATHENS  PELASGIC  AND  HELLENIC.  179 

proportion  between  the  numbers  and  the  influence  of  com- 
mingling tribes,  conquering  or  conquered.  As  time  went 
on,  and  according  to  the  capacity  of  the  secondary  race,  it 
might  well  be  that  though  contributing  at  first  most  largely 
to  the  numbers  of  the  population,  it  perpetuated  but 
little  of  its  primitive  unculture.  Only  in  one  sense  could 
lonians  and  Aeolians  be  conceived  of  as  members  of 
a  non-Hellenic  Pelasgic  race,  and  that  is,  that  a  large, 
perhaps  the  largest  proportion  of  the  population  of  either 
was  of  a  non-Hellenic  stock  which  had  become  absorbed — 
transformed  by  the  superior  energy  and  genius  of  the 
smaller  Hellenic  portion,  of  Aeolic  genius  in  one  case,  of 
Ionian  in  the  other.  Herodotus  himself  gives  an  account 
of  the  expulsion,  by  his  own  Pelasgic  Athenians,  of  a 
depressed  tribe  of  Pelasgi.  One  version  of  this  quarrel 
connected  it  with  molestation  of  free  maidens  drawing  water 
from  the  well  Enneakrounoi.  This  water,  we  learn  from 
Thucydides,  was  used  for  sacred  purposes,  especially  on 
occasions  of  marriage,  and  the  story — which  has  many  an 
ancient  analogue — reads  much  like  a  mythic  translation  of 
a  dispute  as  to  a  privilege  of  intermarriage,  a  constant  source 
of  disagreement  between  tribes  and  cities  of  antiquity. 

What  is  most  surprising  in  the  result  thus  obtained  from 
analysis  of  the  reports,  is  the  extremely  limited  area,  even  if 
we  include  Aegialia  and  Cynouria  with  Attica,  which  is  allowed 
for  the  primitive  lonians,  and  a  difficulty  arises  how  this  can 
consist  with  the  conditions  of  the  grand  figure  that  is  made 
in  historic  times  by  the  Ionian  race  as  correlative  and  in 
competition  with  Dorian  and  Aeolian  conjoined.  But  Hero- 
dotus himself  is  a  witness  how  comparatively  insignificant 
were  the  commencements  of  Ionia.  '  At  a  time,'  he  says, 
'  when  the  Hellenic  race  generally  was  weak,  the  Ionian  was 
by  far  the  weakest  of  all  and  of  least  account ;  for  except 
Athens  there  was  no  other  Ionian  city  of  l  importance.' 

1  Herod,  i.  143. 

N   2 


180  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

It  is  characteristic  of  a  vigorous  stock  that  it  will  from 
time  to  time  throw  out  a  fresh  shoot  that  is  more  productive 
than  any  that  have  gone  before ;  and  not  only  is  a  population 
thus  suddenly  prolific  and  suddenly  prosperous,  but  it  presently 
manifests  new  characteristics,  assumes  new  energies,  and,  in 
respect  of  civilisation,  is  a  true  birth  of  an  original  species. 
It  is  likewise  characteristic  of  the  commencement  of  new 
epochs  of  history,  that  a  particular  tribe,  sometimes  it  may 
be  said  a  particular  family,  makes  its  way  out  of  the  in- 
discriminate crowd  and  cluster,  and  by  conjoint  develop- 
ment of  numbers  and  characteristic  energy  moulds  the 
entire  course  of  after  history.  History  must  usually  accept 
genius  of  this  value  as  an  ultimate  fact ;  it  may  trace 
some  secondary  obligations  to  circumstances,  to  happiness 
of  geographical  position  or  political  surroundings;  but  no 
combination  of  these  has  ever  yet  been  competent  to 
account  for  the  genesis  of  the  chief  motive  characteristics 
of  the  genius  itself.  Still,  with  nations  as  with  men 
individually,  while  the  power  to  mould  circumstances  is 
much, — is  energy  in  any  case  and  may  be  genius, — yet 
for  greatest  results  the  circumstances  must  be  such  as  are 
capable  of  being  moulded  ;  and  moral  and  physical  endow? 
ments  within  and  happy  combinations  and  opportunity  with- 
out, nay,  even  what  we  are  driven  to  call  accident  or  luck, 
must  conspire,  and  at  critical  periods  occasionally  do  con- 
spire, that  the  very  greatest  success  that  is  conceivable 
may  actually  occur. 

The  situation  of  Attica  had  doubtless  many  advantages ; 
and  even  the  poverty  of  its  soil,  which  rendered  it  a  less 
tempting  prey  to  invaders,  would  help  to  divert  industry  to 
maritime  adventure,  for  which  its  spacious  and  well-protected 
harbours  gave  aid  and  encouragement.  Accordingly,  when 
the  time  arrived  that  moral  conditions  were  in  happy  coinci- 
dence with  material  opportunities,  Attica  became  a  centre  of 
most  active  colonisation,  and  the  colonies  she  planted 


xm.]         GENESIS.  OF  IONIAN  NATIONALITY.  181 

proved  secondary  centres  of  most  active  colonisation.  So 
was  filled  up  and  occupied  a  period  all  but  unrecorded  of 
marvellous  development  and  activity  and  prosperity ;  the 
prosperity  that  makes  its  mark  by  the  speedy  growth  of  a 
few  associated  families  into  a  tribe,  of  a  tribe  into  a  nation ; 
growth  with  which  the  world  is  so  familiar  in  the  stories 
of  modern  colonies  and  their  mother  countries. 

We  have  no  direct  and  explicit  trace  of  this  vast  Ionic 
development  in  the  Homeric  poems ;  Pelasgians  are  noted 
as  still  existing,  as  tribes  or  hordes,  but  of  no  coherence 
or  marked  distinction,  and  seeming  to  have  already  receded 
into  almost  as  much  obscurity  as  shrouds  them  for  Hero- 
dotus or  Thucydides — dwindling,  dwarfed,  and  unprogres- 
sive  sections  left  behind,  as  poor  inheritors  of  possibly 
a  once  great  name.  What  indeed  is  not  implied  of  the 
original  greatness  of  the  name  when  in  the  most  solemn 
and  ceremonious  adjuration  of  Zeus  in  the  entire  poem,  he 
is  invoked  under  the  titles  Dodonaean,  ^elasgic?  The 
Achaian  nation  of  Homer  is  not  yet  even  by  name  Hellenic, 
though  the  fact  that  his  chief  hero  Achilles  belongs  to  the 
district  that  includes  Hellas  proper  already  indicates  with 
what  seat  was  to  be  associated  the  hearth  of  the  ultimately 
dominant  tribe.  Still  though  the  period  that  the  poet 
depicts  was  that  to  which  he  was  carried  back  by  the 
legends  he  dealt  with,  the  characteristics  of  which  were 
familiar  in  the  early  scattered  poems  which  his  own  work 
was  destined  to  supersede,  it  was  at  the  same  time  impos- 
sible for  him  not  to  be  influenced  by  the  interests  and 
circumstances  of  his  own  time.  There  is  much  appearance 
that  this  was  when  the  Ionic  development  was  already  in 
active  movement;  and  a  hint  has  even  been  detected  in 
the  possibly  not  unintentional  disparagement  of  Athens — 
sometimes  direct  and  sometimes  by  neglect — that  the  pre- 

1  Iliad,  xvi.  233. 


182  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

dilections  of  the  poet  were  engaged  less  for  the  intrusive 
energy  than  for  the  elder  races. 

A  single  mention  of  lonians  (laones)  in  the  Iliad  brings 
them  curiously  into  equivocal  connexion  with  the  l  Athenians, 
and  with  the  characteristic  epithet — eA/cexfrawes — but  not 
much  can  be  made  of  the  passage.  The  flowing  draperies 
of  the  older  Athenians  were  in  contrast  to  Doric  costume, 
and  together  with  their  peculiar  seclusion  of  women  seem 
to  argue  Asiatic  affinities  or  reactions,  which  were  perhaps 
contracted  in  the  course  of  the  great  Ionian  colonisations. 

It  was  the  great  pride  of  the  Athenians  that  they  were 
autochthonous,  a  boast  which  was  founded  on  the  principle 
that  neither  their  history  nor  their  legends,  which  would 
have  been  accepted  as  equal  in  authority,  could  tell  of 
their  nation  having  ever  been,  like  so  many  others,  ejected 
in  a  body  from  their  territory.  Something  may  have  been 
due  to  the  defensibleness  of  the  country  on  its  northern  moun- 
tainous frontier,  something  to  its  occupying  a  position  aside 
from  the  route  of  armies,  or — which  is  the  explanation  of 
Thucydides — to  the  uncovetable  poverty  of  its  soil.  Attica 
is  just  such  an  angle  of  a  continent  as  populations  are  apt  to 
be  driven  into  as  a  last  refuge  in  violent  times — like  Cornwall 
or  Biscay,  Wales  or  Scotland.  Such  refugees,  if  able  or 
allowed  to  maintain  themselves  in  independence,  sometimes 
only  perpetuate  a  dull  and  ineffective  race,  even  though 
they  may  not  have  been  merely  the  most  ready  to  be  fugi- 
tive, but  the  most  resolved  to  resist  to  the  last  rather  than 
submit  to  conquerors.  It  may  be  otherwise  if  they  accept 
the  influence  of  immigrant  populations,  or  even  of  leaders 
and  dynasties  from  without;  and  great  results  ensue  when 
the  original  population  is  so  endowed  as  not  only  to  respond 
to  happiest  stimulus,  but,  while  accepting  an  influence,  to 
stamp  an  influence  in  return.  In  the  circumstances  of  Attica 

1  Horn.  //.  xiii.  685-689. 


xiii.]    ATHENS  IONIAN  AND  AUTOCHTHONOUS.     183 

we  may  recognise  the  same  process,  though  resulting  in  a 
different  form  of  character,  that  produced  in  England  what 
Shakespeare  has  called  a  'happy  breed  of  men,'  from  the 
mingling  of  Roman,  Dane,  Belgian,  Saxon,  Norman,  Flem- 
ing, Frenchman,  with  the  by  no  means  homogeneous  original 
Celtic  tribes.  Only  in  later  times  did  Attica  become  irre- 
concileably  jealous  of  aliens.  Legislators  even  as  modern 
as  Solon  and  Cleisthenes  consolidated  its  power  by  incor- 
porating strangers  with  full  franchise;  and  it  seems  clear 
that  each  change  of  dynasty  in  mythical  story  expresses 
the  reception  of  a  new  wave  of  foreign,  and  possibly  cog- 
nate, population.  To  these  contingencies,  always  reserving 
the  chief  value  of  the  truly  native,  autochthonous  genius, 
we  may  fairly  ascribe  no  little  of  that  restless  activity  and 
versatility  of  mind  which  distinguished  the  Athenians  even 
among  the  generally  so  restless  and  mobile  Hellenes. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

THE    CONFEDERATION    UNDER   LEADERSHIP   OF   ATHENS. — THE 
ASSESSMENT   OF   ARISTIDES. THE   DISGRACE   OF   PAUSANIAS. 

B.  c.  476  ;  Ol.  75.  4.  and  76. 

As  early  as  490  B.C.,  fourteen  years  before  the  present 
date,  Aristides  had  taken  a  position  of  eminence  at  Athens. 
He  was  one  of  the  generals  who  were  associated  with  Milti- 
ades  at  Marathon,  where  by  setting  the  example  of  deference 
to  his  single  authority,  he  contributed  still  more  to  the  vic- 
tory than  even  by  his  services  in  the  battle ;  the  next  year 
he  was  Archon  Eponymus.  He  was  related  to  one  of  the 
richest  families  in  Athens  represented  by  Callias,  though 
accounted,  for  his  position  at  least,  a  poor  man ;  and  his 
immediate  connexion  was  not  so  much  with  the  oligarchical 
as  the  aristocratical  party,  and  with  the  party  perhaps  even 
less  than  with  the  class.  He  had  been  an  associate  of 
Cleisthenes  the  Alcmaeonid,  a  very  personification  of  that 
class,  who  yet  had  discerned  the  necessity  and  the  occasion 
for  giving  more  decision  to  the  institutions  of  Solon,  and 
had  effected  this  by  original  measures  which  caused  him 
to  be  celebrated  as  even  more  truly  than  Solon  the  founder 
of  Athenian  *  democracy. 

The  Cleisthenean  constitution  owed  its  birth  to  a  sagacious 
recognition  of  the  requirements  of  new  circumstances  in  a 

1  Lwc.  w.  <bri8.  133  ;  Herod,  vi.  131. 


ARISTIDES  AND  THEMISTOCLES.  185 

new  time.  By  a  liberal  admission  of  new  citizens,  and  by 
subdividing  the  tribes  and  redistributing  them  on  a  new 
principle,  and  thus  breaking  up  many  inveterate  local  and 
narrow  influences,  it  did  as  much  violence  to  sectional  pre- 
judices as  had  been  done  to  the  rights  of  property  by  the 
seisachtheia  of  Solon,  to  which  measure  the  innovations  of 
Cleisthenes  acted  as  an  appropriate  complement.  The  ex- 
ample so  confirmed  was  destined  to  be  followed  again,  and 
have  the  further  support  of  Aristides,  though  he  had  first 
to  overcome  the  general  inclination  in  Athens  to  think  that 
a  change  which  had  cost  so  great  an  effort  was  necessarily 
final,  and  could  be  so  maintained.  It  was  in  the  interval 
between  Marathon  and  Salamis  that  Themistocles  entered 
public  life.  He  was  younger  than  Aristides,  and  yet  we  are 
not  on  that  account  obliged  to  set  aside  as  impossible  the 
tradition  that  their  rivalry  began  in  a  Greek  competition 
for  the  regards  of  a  beautiful  Ceian  youth  Stesilaus,  to  which 
Solon  himself  at  an  earlier  1  date  might  have  been  a  party. 
Themistocles,  son  of  Neocles,  was  destitute  of  the  advantages 
both'  of  fortune  and  family,  at  least  of  more  than  just  suffi- 
cient to  give  him  an  opening  to  a  public  career.  Confident 
in  energy  and  resource,  ready  and  incisive  of  speech,  he 
measured  the  scope  of  his  genius  against  the  foreseen  con- 
tingencies of  a  coming  period,  and  dared  to  set  his  ambition 
on  a  glory  that  should  match  even  the  trophy  of  Miltiades, 
by  which  he  was  haunted  sleeping  and  awake. 

Politicians  of  this  stamp,  who  labour  under  such  initial 
disadvantages,  are  apt,  whatever  may  be  their  ultimate  or 
fundamental  patriotism,  not  to  be  over-scrupulous  as  to  the 
persons  or  things  which  they  attack  in  their  resolve  to  let 
the  world  know  early  what  men  it  has  to  reckon  with  and 
will  have  to  find  employment  for.  It  was  in  the  face  of  the 
opposition  of  Miltiades  himself  that  Themistocles  carried  his 

1  Frag,  13  and  15,  Bergk. 


1-8S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

first  great  measure,  the  appropriation  of  the  annual  state 
revenue  from  the  Laurian  silver  mines  to  the  increase  of  the 
fleet ;  and  this  appears  to  have  been  only  one  out  of  many  of 
his  novel  and  adventurous  propositions.  He  is  not  named — 
Xanthippus  has  that  bad  distinction — among  those  who  turned 
the  failure  at  Paros  into  a  capital  charge;  but  he  was  the 
main  cause  (in  483  B.C.)  of  the  ostracism  of  Aristides,  who 
had  supported  Miltiades  in  more  partial  attention  to  a  land- 
force.  It  was  thus  at*  any  rate  that  he  secured  the  direction 
of  the  next  three  years,  invaluable  for  the  timely  furtherance 
of  the  naval  preparations  which  were  to  be  effective  at  Salamis. 
The  opponent  of  his  policy  was  honestly  converted  by  its 
triumph;  Themistocles  himself  moved  for  his  recall,  and 
thenceforward  the  two  acted  in  concert  to  an  extent  truly 
wonderful,  considering  the  contrast  of  their  natures.  Aristides 
is  said  to  have  been  conscious,  even  in  earlier  days,  that, 
in  his  apprehension  of  the  general  prejudicial  influence  of 
Themistocles,  he  had  opposed  him  sometimes  with  too  un- 
fortunate effect;  once  he  had  even  candidly  admitted  that 
it  was  high  time,  if  such  contests  were  to  go  on,  for  the 
Athenians  to  throw  one  or  other  of  them  into  the  pit ;  and 
ostracism  intervened  in  fact  as  a  solution  of  the  difficulty. 
This,  however,  had  now  gone  by;  he  appeared  to  recognise 
that  the  occasion  had  arrived  for  him  to  follow  in  the  steps  of 
his  master  Cleisthenes,  though  as  a  master  himself,  and  that 
he  could  not  do  better  service  to  the  state  than  by  giving 
aid  to  inevitable  changes  with  a  frank  cordiality  which  would 
at  least  enable  him  to  impress  them  with  some  character  of 
his  own,  and  to  regulate  violence  into  ordered  energy. 

Another  contemporary  of  Aristides  still  younger  than 
Themistocles  was  Cimon,  son  of  Miltiades,  who  will  soon 
come  before  us  in  command  of  the  fleet  at  Byzantium. 
He  possessed  a  large  share  of  the  best  qualities  of  both  his 
elders,  without  attaining  to  the  heroic  disinterestedness  of 
Aristides,  and  certainly  falling  short  of  Themistocles  at  the 


xiv.]  CIMON  SON  OF  MILTIADES.  187 

point  where  nature  has  set  the  eternal  limit  between  en- 
dowments however  distinguished  and  unquestionable  genius. 
He  began  life  under  mingled  conditions  of  hardship  and  bril- 
liancy. He  inherited  the  renown  of  Marathon,  which  could 
not  but  be  a  power  as  time  went  on  with  the  men  who  had 
fought  there.  They  were  however  for  a  time  ungratefully 
jealous  of  it  as  too  great  a  power,  and  resented  some  self- 
assertion  of  Miltiades  by  seizing  the  opportunity  of  inflicting 
on  him  a  monstrous  fine  of  fifty  talents,  which,  remaining 
unpaid  at  his  death,  carried  on  the  obligation  and  the  stigma 
to  his  son.  The  son  had  the  buoyancy  both  of  youth  and 
of  temperament ;  he  was  disinclined  to  the  more  finished 
intellectual  or  musical  culture  that  already  distinguished  the 
Athenians  above  other  Greeks,  as  it  did  the  Greeks  from 
barbarians.  In  speech  and  manners  he  was  more  in  harmony 
with  the  Dorian  type,  and  proved  himself  always  naturally 
more  in  sympathy  with  Sparta  than  even  Aristides,  who  set 
up  as  his  legislative  model  the  severity  of  Lycurgus.  Severe, 
in  early  life  at  least,  Cimon  was  not.  He  was  free  of  life  and 
of  love,  and  contemporary  poets  told  of  his  weakness  for  the 
Salaminian  Asteria,  and  again  for  a  certain  Mnestra;  told 
also,  however,  of  his  affection  for  a  legitimate  wife  Isodice, 
daughter  of  Euryptolemus,  a  son  of  Megacles,  in  elegies 
written  to  console  him  in  his  desolation  at  her  death.  By 
these  characteristics,  combined  with  a  generous  and  open 
nature  and  energy  in  public  lofty  aims,  he  was  recognised 
as  bearing  resemblance  to  the  Euripidean  type  of  Hercules : 

tyavKov,  aKOfa/^ov,  T&  ntyicrr'  dyaObv. 

A  wealthy  marriage  of  his  half-sister  Elpinice  was  the 
means,  it  is  said,  of  relieving  him  from  the  inherited  fine, 
and  his  military  services  at  Salamis  and  onwards  commenced 
a  popularity  which  was  confirmed  by  an  unaffected  manner 
which  transmuted  a  blunt  bearing  into  gentleness  itself.  In 
Cimon  we  recognise  an  antique  type  of  what  in  modern  times 


188  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

we  designate  with  admiration  as  truly  '  sailor- like.'  It  was 
as  quite  a  youth  that  he  adopted  the  maritime  policy  of 
Themistocles,  which  he  was  to  devote  his  life  to  carrying 
out.  In  the  midst  of  the  dismay  produced  by  the  resolution 
to  abandon  Athens  for  the  ships,  Cimon  was  seen  in  cheerful 
style — Ion  described  him  as  of  noble  stature,  with  a  head 
of  abundant  close  and  curly  hair — leading  a  troop  of 
companions  through  the  Cerameicus  to  the  Acropolis,  and 
holding  in  his  hand  a  bridle,  which  he  was  on  his  way  to 
dedicate  to  the  goddess  in  token  that  the  class  of  knights 
with  whom  his  fortune  was  then  perhaps  only  sufficient  to 
rank  him,  were  for  the  time  renouncing  land  service.  He 
exchanged  bit  and  bridle  for  one  of  the  shields — probably 
his  father's  spoils  from  Marathon — which  were  suspended 
about  the  temple,  and  then,  after  a  prayer  to  the  goddess, 
descended  to  embark,  communicating  to  no  few  the  spirit  'of 
his  enthusiasm.  In  the  actual  conflict  he  acquitted  himself 
with  such  brilliant  manfulness  as  to  mark  him  at  once  for 
a  career  not  unworthy  of  his  Origin.  The  first  time  that 
his  name  appears  afterwards  is  as  the  colleague  of  Aristides, 
by  anticipation  possibly  of  his  successorship,  in  command  of 
the  fleet  at  Byzantium :  that  Cornelius  Nepos,  by  confusion 
with  a  later  exploit,  puts  him  in  the  place  of  Xanthippus  at 
Mycale,  may  be  due — and  that  is  all  that  can  be  said — to  his 
name  having  really  occurred  there  in  a  secondary  command. 

Nothing  is  more  comprehensible  than  the  attraction  which 
is  said  to  have  been  felt  by  Aristides  towards  the  compara- 
tively youthful  Cimon,  and  to  none  could  he  resign  more 
hopefdlly  the  responsibilities  of  active  warfare  which  he 
now  seems  to  have  relinquished  for  organic  statesmanship. 

The  lonians  did  not  adopt  Athenian  leadership  in  place 
of  Spartan  unspurred  by  a  lively  sense  of  their  requirement 
of  aid,  and  of  their  most  likely  chance  for  obtaining  it. 

1  Plut.  Cimon,  5. 


xiv.]         ATHENS  AND  CONFEDERATE  IONIA.          189 

Neither  the  seaports  of  the  Asian  coast  nor  the  islands  could 
reasonably  feel  themselves  safe  from  further  attack  and 
cruel  reprisals,  sooner  or  later;  too  much  cause  had  they  to 
remember  Persian  pertinacity  and  l  vindictiveness.  To  secure 
themselves  against  such  renewals  of  violence  by  weakening- 
or  overawing  the  common  enemy  was  now  recognised  as  a 
genuine  common  object  in  the  interest  of  both  the  parties  to 
the  new  arrangement,  with  as  much  fervour  as  it  was  after- 
wards believed  to  be  a  mere  pretext  for  exaction  on  the 
part  of  the  Athenians,  and  with  more  reason.  Revenge 
for  sufferings  and  the  hope  of  recouping  losses  by  conquest 
and  plunder,  were  no  doubt  also  not  uninfluential  motives; 
the  strength  of  all  combined  is  proved  by  the  serious 
arrangements  which  were  not  only  agreed  to  with  alacrity, 
but  realised  and  sustained.  A  permanent  confederation  was 
formed  for  the  prosecution  of  hostilities  and  the  protection 
of  Hellas  and  her  colonies  against  Persia.  To  Athens,  as 
decidedly  the  preponderant  power,  both  morally  and  mate- 
rially, was  of  necessity,  and  also  with  free  good- will,  con- 
signed the  headship  and  chief  control  of  the  affairs  and 
conduct  of  the  alliance;  a  position  that  carried  with  it 
the  responsibility  of  the  collection  and  administration  of  a 
common  fund,  and  the  presidency  of  the  assemblies  of  dele- 
gates. As  time  went  on  and  circumstances  altered,  the  terms 
of  confederation  were  modified  in  various  instances ;  but  at 
first  the  general  rule  was  the  contribution,  not  only  of 
money  or  ships,  but  of  actual  personal  service.  The  im- 
portant insular  communities  of  Lesbos,  Chios,  and  Samos 
occupied  from  the  very  first  that  position  of  exceptional 
independence  as  compared  with  the  smaller  islands  and  the 
separate  cities  of  the  coasts  which  they  long  retained.  They 
were  able  and  willing  to  yield  their  full  share  of  assistance  to 
the  main  object  in  manned  and  disciplined  war-ships,  and  did 

1  Diod.  xi.  48. 


190  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

not  make  themselves  liable  for  a  money  assessment,  for  which, 
as  time  went  on,  both  the  supply  of  ships  and  service  of  men 
was  elsewhere  willingly  commuted.  We  have  no  precise 
enumeration  of  the  allies  of  Athens  at  this  early  time,  but 
the  course  of  the  history  brings  up  the  mention  of  many; 
and  on  two  occasions — at  the  outbreak  of  the  Peloponnesian 
and  Syracusan  wars — Thucydides  gives  lists  which  are  com- 
prehensive, though  in  disappointingly  general  terms.  Crete 
was  never  directly  affected  by  these  events,  and  Cyprus  ^Yas 
also  soon  to  be  left  aside ;  but  otherwise  all  the  Greek 
islands  of  the  Aegean  northwards — except  Melos,  Thera, 
Aegina,  and  Cythera — were  contributory,  including  Euboea; 
as  were  the  cities  on  the  coasts  of  Thrace  and  the  Chalcidic 
peninsula  from  the  Macedonian  boundary  to  the  Hellespont ; 
Byzantium  and  various  cities  on  the  coasts  of  the  Propontis, 
and  less  certainly  of  the  Euxine;  the  important  series  of 
cities  on  the  western  coast  of  Asia  Minor — though  apparently 
with  considerable  exceptions — Aeolian,  Ionian,  Dorian,  and 
Carian,  as  far  as  Caunus  at  least  on  the  borders  of  Lycia,  if 
not  even  round  to  the  Chelidonian  isles. 

The  sacred  island  of  Delos  was  chosen  as  the  depository 
of  the  common  treasure  and  the  place  of  meeting  of  the 
contributors.  Apart  from  its  central  convenience  and  de- 
fensibleness as  an  island,  and  the  sanctity  of  the  temple, 
which  had  been  respected,  and  more  than  respected,  by 
Datis,  who  even  burnt  lavish  incense  there, —  it  was  a 
traditional  centre  for  solemn  reunions  of  lonians  from  either 
side  the  Aegean.  Thucydides  quotes  the  Homeric  hymn 
as  proving  that  these  festivals  in  very  early  times  were  of 
the  same  character  as  those  which  in  his  day  collected  the 
entire  Ionian  population  of  every  age  and  sex  at  the  Ephesian 
celebrations.  Both  Polycrates  of  Samos  and  Peisistratus  as 
tyrant  of  Athens  had  displayed  a  pious  regard  for  the 
seat  of  the  nativity  of  Apollo  and  Artemis,  no  doubt 
of  much  the  same  value  and  significance  as  the  jealousy 


xiv.]       .    THE  ASSESSMENT  OF  ARISTIDES.  191 

which  has  involved  modern  politicians  in  war  ostensibly  upon 
a  quarrel  about  the  keys  and  custody  of  holy  places.  The 
annual  theoria  of  the  Athenians  to  Delos  is  memorised  in  the 
story  of  the  death  of  Socrates. 

At  the  distinct  request  of  the  allies  the  Athenians  ap- 
pointed Aristides  to  superintend  the  difficult  process  of 
assessing  the  various  forms  and  amounts  of  contribution. 
This  implies  that  his  fairness  and  probity  must  already 
have  gained  general  approval ;  though  it  is  possible  that 
it  was  his  strict  observance  of  justice  in  the  performance  of 
the  task  that  obtained  for  him  that  universal  character  under 
which  he  is  recognised  by  Herodotus,  who  declares  him  to 
have  been  to  his  mind  the  very  best  of  the  Athenians  and 
the  most  just.  We  are  fain,  however,  to  admit  that  he 
may  have  merited  and  obtained  that  title  previously,  for  it 
were  pity  to  sacrifice  the  story  that  he  had,  necessarily  at  an 
earlier  date,  written  his  own  name  on  the  oyster-shell  for 
a  clown,  who  could  give  no  better  reason  for  his  vote  of 
ostracism  than  that  he  was  utterly  tired  of  hearing  about 
Aristides  the  Just — the  Just. 

The  total  annual  amount  of  the  assessment  was  the  large 
sum  of  460  talents  (^113,125),  and  this  perhaps  not  inclu- 
sive of,  but  only  supplementary  to,  the  costly  supply  of 
equipped  ships  furnished  by  some  of  the  cities  in  lieu  of  a 
money  payment,  and  exclusive  again  of  any  payment  by 
Athens,  whose  navy  was  most  important  of  all.  We  know  as 
little  of  any  basis  on  which  the  required  total  was  calculated 
as  we  do  of  the  proportions  in  which  it  was  distributed.  We 
are  only  assured  by  the  satisfaction  expressed  in  the  settlement 
— perhaps  heightened  in  its  echoes  from  experience  of  later 
changes — that  the  total,  like  the  distribution,  was  held  to  be 
perfectly  justified. 

According  to  ]  Plutarch,  the  Greeks  had  made  payments 

1  Plut.  Arist.  24. 


192  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

towards  the  war  even  under  the  leadership  of  the  Lace- 
daemonians, but  not  on  the  principle  of  such  a  distinct 
survey  and  estimate  of  their  respective  resources  as  was 
now  carried  through  by  Aristides.  The  assessor  came  forth 
from  the  trial  a  poorer  man  than  he  entered  upon  it — to  the* 
great  astonishment  of  Athens,  and  somewhat  to  the  amuse- 
ment of  Themistocles,  who  professed  to  recognise  that  as  but 
poor  praise  for  a  politician  which  was  not  too  extravagant 
a  merit  for  a  money-bag. 

The  prospect  of  peace  and  security  might  well  reconcile 
these  industrious  cities  to  payments,  even  exceeding  in 
amount  the  tribute  formerly  exacted  by  Persia,  which  in 
most  important  cases  had  been  levied  by  tyrants  or  sa- 
traps, who  could  enrich  themselves  with  all  the  recklessness 
of  arbitrary  power.  The  tax  so  willingly  paid  by  auto- 
nomous states  who  had  joint  votes  in  its  expenditure  was 
first  called  the  <£o/>os ;  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether  an  in- 
heritance of  the  former  title  of  tribute,  or  a  euphemistic  modi- 
fication of  it  on  occasion  of  the  change.  Thucydides  thinks 
it  necessary  to  explain  the  term  as  an  equivalent  of  <f>6pa.  In 
later  days  the  Athenians  found  even  the  term  <f>6pa  for  a  tax 
odious,  and  substituted  for  it  awra£is,  as  implying  a  burden 
not  imposed  but  agreed  upon.  The  immediate  officials  who, 
according  to  Thucydides,  were  intrusted  with  the  receipt  of 
the  fund,  and  according  to  their  title,  with  the  dispensing  of  it 
also,  were  the  Hellenotamiae,  whose  appointment  rested  with 
the  Athenians.  This  title,  by  its  very  parallelism  with  the 
Hellenodicae  of  Olympia,  and  indeed  of  Sparta  l  also,  carries 
with  it  an  implied  responsibility  for  the  common  interests 
of  Hellas,  and  we  must  assume  that  their  functions  were 
supposed  to  be  exercised  under  certain  agreed  conditions 
of  audit  and  control  by  the  periodical  congress.  The 
whole  arrangement  was  based  on  the  model  of  the  ancient 

1  Xen.  Rep.  Lac.  xiii.  n. 


xiv.]  THE  ASSESSMENT  OF  ARISTIDES.  193 

araphictyonies,  but  vastly  dilated  both  in  scope  and  scale. 
Themistocles  may  have  had  no  hand  in  its  organisation, 
but  he  who  had  urged  elsewhere  so  cogently,  that  the  more 
insignificant  cities,  whatever  the  theoretical  equality  of  their 
vote  in  such  assemblies,  would  always  be  controlled  by  one 
or  other  of  the  few  more  powerful,  must  have  been  well 
satisfied  with  the  prospect  for  the  power  of  Athens  in  such 
a  combination,  where  she  stood  in  her  preponderance  unrivalled 
and  alone.  When  assessment,  collection,  and  distribution 
were  exclusively  and  immediately  in  Athenian  hands,  no 
check  of  general  supervision,  at  whatever  seat  of  the  treasury, 
could  long  be  counted  upon,  by  those  who  knew  Greece,  to 
prevent  distribution  being  mainly  biased  towards  Athenian 
policy  and  purposes.  We  hear  nothing  directly  of  any 
negotiations  with  Sparta  with  reference  to  this  fund  and 
the  further  prosecution  of  the  purpose  to  which  it  was  to 
be  applied ;  and  yet  a  confederacy  that  was  to  be  the  common 
bulwark  of  Hellas,  and  that  proposed  to  itself  the  task  of 
so  dealing  with  Persian  power  as  to  render  her  hitherto 
periodical  aggressions  impossible  for  the  future,  had  surely  a 
claim  upon  the  Peloponnesians  generally.  The  peninsula 
that  had  hardly  roused  itself  before  to  move  its  arms  beyond 
the  Isthmus  until  alarmed  for  the  immunity  of  its  own 
coasts,  could  scarcely  but  be  urged  now  to  further  the 
efficiency  of  the  fleet  on  which  it  might  again  have  to 
rely  for  its  immunity  hereafter.  The  Spartans  however 
did  not  at  this  time  naturally  look  very  far  ahead ;  it  was 
enough  for  them  and  satisfied  their  traditions  to  see  that 
there  was  no  danger  immediately  pressing ;  in  any  case 
they  could  not  now  appear  as  allies  subordinate  to  Athens, 
where  they  had  lately  been  superiors;  their  own  power  and 
that  of  their  immediate  dependents  and  allies — Corinthians, 
Arcadians,  and  the  rest  who  had  sallied  with  them  to  Plataea — 
would  always  be  in  reserve ;  the  conduct  of  Leotychides  and 
Pausanias  abroad  had  moreover  not  only  put  them  more  than 

o 


194  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

ever  out  of  conceit  with  detached  enterprises,  but  to  some 
extent  had  disarranged  their  political  and  military  system. 
All  such  difficulties  and  objections  only  operated  to  enhance 
the  value  of  the  opportunity  to  Athens,  and  we  may  with 
much  confidence  assign  to  this  time  an  embassy  that  arrived 
at  Sparta  from  the  Athenians  to  move — perhaps  in  the  common 
Hellenic  synedrion,  which  was  still  considered  to  meet  there — 
the  further  consideration  of  the  relations  of  Hellas  to  Persia. 
Its  announcements  and  proposals  were  not  received  without 
producing  considerable  agitation.  They  included  at  least  a 
vindication,  which  we  may  suppose  was  rather  challenged 
than  in  the  first  instance  volunteered,  of  the  scale  on  which 
the  harbour  of  the  Piraeus  was  being  extended  as  necessary 
for  the  security  and  reception  of  the  combined  Hellenic  fleet — 
now  so  very  numerous  from  the  accession  of  the  colonies — 
and  on  which  the  security  of  Jlellas  would  henceforward  de- 
pend. The  strong  argument  of  an  oracle  that  commanded 
the  Spartans  to  beware  of  admitting  a  halting  leadership  was 
urged,  it  is  said,  against  their  renunciation  of  maritime 
hegemony,  the  natural  complement  of  that  which  they 
retained  by  land.  The  ambition  moreover  that  had  been 
so  fostered  at  Athens  by  glory  and  success  could  scarcely 
but  spring  up  under  like  influences  among  the  younger 
spirits  of  Lacedaemon  ;  the  excitement  that  crazed  Pausanias 
was  not  without  its  effect  on  minds  by  many  degrees  more 
sober.  The  passions  however  that  were  now  so  born  had 
to  wait  their  time  and  their  turn ;  at  Sparta  the  power  of 
the  elders  was  supreme,  and  the  aspiration  of  the  new 
generation  had  to  survive  if  it  could,  and  as  in  effect  it  did, 
the  sexagenarian  predecessors  in  possession.  To  a  Heracleid 
Hetaemeridas  is  assigned  the  ingenuity  of  propounding 
reasons  that  sounded  sufficient  for  leaving  the  Athenians 
to  take  their  own  way  undisturbed,  as  it  was  clear  that 
they  intended  to  take  it  in  any  case.  Such  at  least  is  the 
point  of  view  from  which  the  certainly  perplexed  and 


xiv.]  THE  DISGRACE  OF  PAUSANIAS,  195 

disarranged  notices  of  l  Diodorus  seem  to  fall  naturally 
into  coherence.  He  concludes  that  the  Athenians,  being 
entirely  relieved  from  apprehension  of  a  breach  with  Sparta, 
were  at  undisturbed  leisure  to  apply  themselves  to  the  ad- 
vancefrient  of  their  own  city ;  and  from  his  last  date  (the 
archonship  of  Dromoclides,  476-5  B.C.)  there  certainly  ensues 
an  interval  of  several  Olympiads — the  ojucuxM"1  °f  2Thucydides, 
a  period  short  enough,  and  yet  how  long  for  Greece ! — 
within  which  the  two  great  powers  of  land  and  sea,  of 
Dorian  and  Ionian  stock,  are  at  least  not  in  hostile  collision. 
One  transitory  difficulty  only  was  to  occur,  or  had  already 
occurred,  that  bore  such  a  semblance,  and  this  again  was  due 
to  what  must  be  called  another  extravagance  of  Pausanias. 
He  reappeared  at  Byzantium  in  a  ship  of  Hermione,  pro- 
fessedly to  take  part  in  the  war,  though  without  any  public 
authorisation  from  Sparta,  and  in  reality  with  intention  to 
proceed  with  his  criminal  intrigues.  Between  his  personal 
authority  with  those  who  could  not  suspect  him  of  treason, 
and  his  connections  with  the  party  which  at  Byzantium,  as 
in  Athens  itself,  would  through  rivalry  or  in  consideration 
of  bribes  concur  in  such  designs,  he  managed  to  establish 
himself  in  the  city  in  such  a  position,  that  when  the  allies 
under  the  conduct  of  Cimon  took  the  alarm,  their  ejection  of 
him  is  expressed  by  phrases  implying  either  direct  violence 
or  starving  out.  Plutarch,  who  does  not  here  copy  Thucy- 
dides,  employs  the  same  expression.  He  went  off  southwards, 
but  only  to  fix  himself  at  Colonae  in  the  Troad,  within 
easy  reach  of  Artabazus,  if  not  of  Demaratus  and  Gongylus 
also.  Information  of  his  practices  however  went  past  him  to 
Sparta,  with  no  favourable  account  of  his  doings;  and  the 
ephors  forthwith  despatched  the  formal  summons  of  a  scytale, 
bidding  him  return  in  company  with  the  herald  who  bore  it, 
and  never  quit  him  on  pain  of  being  accounted  a  national 
enemy.  Unwilling  to  excite  further  suspicion,  and  in 
1  Diod.  xi.  43  and  50.  a  Time.  i.  10. 

O    2 


196  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

confidence  that  with  the  treasure  at  his  command  he  could 
escape  from  existing  charges  by  bribes,  he  returned  a 
second  time.  On  arrival  he  was  placed  in  confinement, 
and  retained  there  some  time  by  the  ephors,  in  the  exercise 
of  their  independent  authority  even  over  a  king,  not  to 
say  a  regent ;  and  it  was  only  by  treating  and  management 
that  he  obtained  a  formal  trial  at  an  opportunity  for 
bringing  the  accusations  against  him  to  a  favourable  issue. 
Nothing  was  established  against  him,  either  by  his  enemies 
or  the  state,  with  such  positiveness  as  to  warrant  severity 
towards  one,  who,  himself  of  the  royal  blood,  was  also  the 
official  governor  and  representative  of  the  minority  of  his 
cousin,  King  Plistarchus,  son  of  Leonidas.  His  acquittal 
however  left  him  not  the  less  under  grave  suspicions,  on 
account  of  his  infringements  of  Spartan  discipline  and  his 
manifest  leaning  to  the  ways  of  the  barbarians  ;  he  remained 
therefore  for  years  unemployed,  and  not  unwatched,  until 
impatience  was  again  to  overmaster  him  and  hurry  him 
to  a  wretched  catastrophe. 

It  must  have  been  about  this  time  that  intrigue  with 
Persian  gold  from  the  satrapy  of  Artabazus,  and  possibly  with 
some  reference  to  the  invitations  of  Pausanias,  was  brought 
home  to  an  agent  in  Peloponnesus.  This  was  Arthmius, 
son  of  Pythonax  of  Zeleia,  a  town  rather  of  Phrygia  than 
the  Troad :  he  was  a  proxenus  of  Athens,  and  at  Athens  in- 
dignation was  vehement  accordingly.  l  Demosthenes  quotes 
textually  a  decree,  alluded  to  in  like  terms  by  both  ?Ae- 
schines  and  3  Deinarchus,  which  remained  inscribed  on  a 
bonze  stele  in  the  Acropolis,  and  by  which,  on  the  motion 
of  Thucydides,  Arthmius  was  declared  '  degraded  and  hostile,' 
and  warned  under  penalty  of  death,  not  only  from  Athens 
itself,  but  from  every  territory  under  Athenian  control ;  and 
the  exclusion  extended  to  his  family  and  his  4  descendants. 

1  Demosth.  Phil.  iii.  p.  Hi.  *  Aesch.  c.  Ctet.  sub  fin. 

1  D«inar.  c.  Aritt.  25,  76.  *  Plut.  Them.  6, 


CHAPTEE    XV. 

ATHENIAN   PROSECUTION   OF   THE  WAR. — CIMON   IN  THRACE. 
B.C.  476;  01.  75.  4  and  76.  i. 

THE  command  of  the  combined  fleet  had  in  the  meantime 
been  taken  over  at  Byzantium  by  Cimon,  who,  arriving 
from  Athens  with  a  small  squadron  of  only  four  ships,  had 
nevertheless  found  an  opportunity  for  a  brilliant  achievement 
by  the  way.  In  the  absence  of  the  chief  Greek  force  at 
Byzantium,  the  Persians,  who  were  not  quite  cleared  out 
of  Chersonesus,  and  some  garrisons  further  west,  were  giving 
signs  of  renewed  activity  and  intriguing  for  the  co-operation 
of  Thracian  allies  from  the  north.  With  his  four  triremes,  which 
no  doubt  were  provided  with  the  improvements  introduced 
by  l  Themistocles,  he  successfully  attacked  their  flotilla  of 
thirteen  vessels,  and  then  followed  up  his  victory  on  land 
by  beating  and  driving  out  both  Persians  and  auxiliaries, 
with  such  effect  as  to  set  the  fertile  peninsula  entirely 
free  for  Athenian  re-occupation.  We  can  scarcely  refuse 
this  exploit  as  related  by  Plutarch  a  place  in  the  history, 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  find  a  better,  or  indeed  another,  for 
we  must  demur  to  accepting  it  as  introductory  to  the  re- 
duction of  the  important  rebellion  of  Thasos  some  years  later, 
when  the  fleet  employed  was  necessarily  much  more  numerous 
and  powerful. 

1  Plut.  dm.  1 2. 


198  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  [CHAP. 

The  full  force  of  the  Byzantine  fleet  being  now  required, 
was  directed  by  Cimon,  energetically  and  without  delay, 
to  unfasten  the  hold  which  the  Persians,  though  ousted 
from  the  straits,  and,  as  we  may  infer,  from  1Lemnos  and 
Thasos  likewise,  still  retained  upon  Thrace.  Their  oppor- 
tunity for  receiving  reinforcements  from  Asia  was  now  finally 
cut  off,  and  the  time  had  come  to  deal  with  them  in  detail. 

Far  and  wide  over  Thrace,  as  well  as  along  the  Hellespont, 
the  officers  of  the  Great  King  had  held  posts  ever  since  the 
European  expedition  of  Mardonius  under  2  Darius.  It  was 
then  that  the  island  of  Thasos  had  been  reduced  by  them,  and 
compelled  to  demolish  its  walls  and  surrender  its  navy,  to 
the  formation  of  which  it  had  devoted  the  profits  of  the 
mines  on  the  mainland — an  anticipation  of  the  policy  that 
was  to  have  better  fortune  at  Athens.  One  chief  Persian 
stronghold  was  at  EVon,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Strymon,  over 
against  Thasos,  commanding  the  access  to  the  gold  regions 
of  Mount  Pangaeus,  which,  as  worked  by  the  Thasians,  had 
rivalled  in  productiveness  those  of  their  own  3island.  The 
district,  however  yielded  silver  as  well  as  gold,  4and  was 
occupied  partly  by  the  Pierians,  between  the  mountains 
and  the  sea,  partly  by  the  Odomanti,  and  most  especially 
by  the  Satrian  Thracians,  all  most  warlike  tribes,  whose 
seats  extended  northwards,  among  thickly-wooded  or  snow- 
covered  mountains,  and  who  never  had  been  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  historian  otherwise  than  independent.  On  their 
loftiest  mountains  they  had  an  oracle  of  Dionysus,  which 
implies  the  culture  of  the  vine  on  the  lower  slopes,  and 
corresponds  with  what  might  be  inferred  from  the  mytho- 
logical aspects  of  the  region  ;  it  has  even  been  conjectured, 
not  unplausibly,  that  the  Dionysiac  Satyrs  were  in  origin 
no  other  than  these  wild  Satrae.  The  limits  of  Mace- 
donian sway  were  already  advanced  very  close  up  towards 

1  Xen.  Hellcn.v.  I.  31.  '  Herod,  vii.  106. 

1  Herod,  vi.  46.  «  Id.  vii.  na. 


xv. J      ATHENIAN  PROSECUTION  OF  THE  WAR.      199 

the  *  Strymon,  between  which  and  Mount  Dysorus  lay  other 
most  productive  mines.  Herodotus  had  visited  with  marvel 
the  mines  at  Thasos,  which  he  ascribes  to  early  Phoe- 
nician colonists ;  Greeks  possibly  in  direct  intercourse  with 
Phoenicia,  who  had  brought  thence  their  knowledge  of 
mining,  even  if  they  had  not,  which  is  probable  enough, 
Phoenician  associates.  The  resources  which  were  appreciated 
so  early,  were  still  and  long  after  unexhausted,  at  least 
on  the  mainland ;  the  Persians  levied  rates  upon  them  during 
their  occupation,  and  Thracians,  Athenians,  Thasians,  and 
Macedonians  fight  over  them  down  to  the  extinction  of 
Hellenic  autonomies  by  the  kings,  who  drew  from  them 
the  very  sinews  of  their  military  power.  The  liberation 
of  Thasos  from  Persia,  after  the  destruction  of  the  fortifi- 
cations by  the  Persians  themselves,  is  passed  over  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  but  the  reduction  of  Eion  was  attended  by  some 
difficult  and  remarkable  circumstances.  The  Persian  in  com- 
mand was  Boges,  a  man  of  desperate  resolution,  who  held 
out  to  the  last.  He  relied  on  his  fortifications,  and  was  in 
correspondence  for  supplies  with  friendly  Thracians  of  the 
upper  Strymon,  in  the  district  of  Siris,  which  had  been  subju- 
gated and  cleared  of  its  earlier  Paeonian  inhabitants  by  Mega- 
bazus,  lieutenant  of  Darius,  and  in  which  Xerxes  had  de- 
posited his  sacred  chariot. 

It  is  an  illustration  of  how  far  the  successes  of  Leotychides 
in  Thessaly,  incomplete  as  they  were  considered  at  home,  had 
transferred  power  to  the  Hellenic  party,  that  Menon  of  Phar- 
salus  aided  the  Athenians  here  with  a  subsidy  of  twelve 
talents,  and  a  squadron  of  300  Penestae  mounted  at  his  own 
2  charge.  There  is  only  a  question  whether  his  great  recom- 
pense was  citizenship  or  somewhat  short  of  this — ateleia.  By 
the  time  the  armament  of  the  allies  arrived,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Cimon,  such  a  force  had  been  concentrated  by  Boges, 

1  Herod,  v.  17.  *  Demosth.  Aristoc.  p.  687. 


200  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

either  from  allies  and  stations  inland  or  from  the  garrisons 
which  controlled  the  numerous  cities  of  the  adjacent  Chal- 
cidic  peninsula,  that  he  was  encouraged  to  stand  a  conflict  in 
open  field ;  he  was  worsted,  however,  and  driven  within  the 
walls,  where  his  numbers  only  gave  the  besieged  additional 
embarrassment.  Cimon's  force  was  sufficient  to  invest  the 
city,  and  the  hoped-for  relief  never  made  its  appearance ;  the 
Athenian  general  had  cut  off  all  chance  of  it,  by  detaching  a 
force  against  the  Thracians  and  driving  them  before  it  in  all 
directions.  Famine  was  now  imminent,  but  the  place  still  held 
out ;  and  the  offer  of  conditions  of  surrender,  including  safe- 
conduct  to  Asia,  which  was  made  readily  by  the  besiegers 
for  the  sake  of  speedier  possession  of  their  prize, — the  very 
citadel,  and  also  the  treasury  of  the  wealthy  province, — was 
rejected.  The  difficulty  of  holding  out,  however,  was  not 
dependent  alone  on  pressure  of  famine,  however  urgent ;  there 
was  a  danger  more  urgent  still.  The  walls  of  the  city  were 
of  unburnt  brick,  that  would  yield  readily  to  the  action  of 
water ;  and  Cimon,  by  a  stratagem  that  was  long  a  favourite 
subject  of  celebration,  and  was  one  day  to  be  imitated  against 
the  walls  of  l  Mantinea,  so  dammed  and  diverted  the  Strymon, 
that  under  its  action  the  speedy  formation  of  a  breach  was. 
unavoidable.  The  catastrophe  that  ensued  has  many  parallels, 
especially  in  Eastern  history ;  Butes,  or  Boges,  slew  his 
children,  wife,  and  concubines,  on  an  enormous  pyre,  dis- 
appointed the  besiegers  by  scattering  from  the  wall  before 
their  sight  into  the  Strymon  all  the  treasure  of  gold  and 
silver  out  of  the  citadel,  then  fired  the  city  and  the  pyre 
at  once,  and  entered  himself  and  his  friends  with  him  into 
the  flames.  '  On  this  account  he  is  still  to  the  present  time 
praised  by  the  Persians,'  says  Herodotus,  '  and  rightly  2  too.' 
It  would  be  rash,  however,  to  conclude  that  this  immolation 
was  so  complete  that  no  spoil  whatever,  nor  Persian  prisoners 

1  Paus.  viii.  8.  5.  »  Herod,  vii.  107  ;  Plut.  Ctm.  7. 


xv.]      ATHENIAN  PROSECUTION  OF  THE  WAR.      201 

of  birth  available  for  ransom,  were  left  over  for  the  victors.  The 
terms  of  Thucydides  imply  a  selling  into  slavery  as  consequent 
on  the  l  capture,  and  an  anecdote  relates  how  on  such  an  occa- 
sion, at  least,  Cimon  enriched  himself  by  sagaciously  taking  his 
share  rather  in  naked  prisoners  than  their  rich  accoutrements. 
Ihis  conquest  at  once  freed  the  Greek  cities  of  the  sea- 
board of  the  westward  gulfs  from  annoyance,  and  added 
them  as  contributors  to  the  Aristidean  assessment;  as  such 
we  find  distinctly  enumerated  Argilus,  Stageirus,  Acan- 
thus, Scolus,  Olynthus,  and  others  come  in  by  implication. 
Thucydides  names  the  capture  of  Eion  as  the  first  of  the 
exploits  by  which  Athens  advanced  to  empire,  and  so  distin- 
tinguishing  it  above  others  unnamed  must,  I  think,  be  held 
to  imply  that  the  Athenians  from  the  first  held  the  place 
in  their  own  possession.  It  thus  became  their  basis  for  ad- 
vancing some  years  later  to  a  position  higher  up  the  river, 
and  of  most  admirable  natural  advantages.  Old  traditions 
gave  the  Athenian,  what  he  accepted  as  a  title,  to  feel 
himself  no  stranger  in  this  region.  He  was  accustomed  to 
the  tale  that  the  sons  of  Theseus,  Demophon  and  Acamas, 
had,  one  or  the  other,  or  perhaps  both,  touched  here  after  the 
taking  of  Troy,  and  close  at  hand  was  the  scene  of  the  loves 
of2  Demophon — or  of  3Acamas — and  Phyllis.  Phyllis  is  the 
eponymous  nymph  or  heroine  of  the  district  Phyllis,  that  lies 
between  the  northern  slopes  of  Mount  Pangaeus  and  the  river 
Angites,  that  flows  parallel  to  it  to  join  the  Strymon  in  the 
lake  Prasias  above  Ei'on.  4Aeschines  appeals  to  this  my  thus 
— how  Acamas  (his  Scholiast  says  Demophon)  had  received 

• 

the  site  of  Amphipolis  in  way  of  dowry — as  being  notoriously 
ancient,  as  well  as,  at  any  rate  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  hearers 
and  his  argument,  authentic ;  and  it  implies  an  inaccurate 
and  modern  apprehension  of  the  characteristics  of  a  period 
given  to  limited  variations  of  mythus,  if  one  should  imagine 

1  Thuc.  i.  98.  2  Serv.  in  Virg.  Eel.  v.  10 ;  Ovid,  Epist.  Her.  2. 

3  Lucian.  de  Sail. ;  Schol.  Aesch.  de  Pal.  Leg.  *  Aesch.  de  Fal.  Leg. 


202  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

that  the  story  had  its  origin  after  this  campaign  of  Cimon. 
We  may  far  more  probably  assume  that  it  is  a  genuine, 
though  of  course  mythical,  record  of  some  primitive  trans- 
actions between  Athens  and  this  region ;  a  consequence  of 
it  no  less  real  than  that  hankering  after  power  in  this 
quarter  by  the  Athenians,  a  passion  which  returns  again  and 
again,  like  an  ineradicable  impression  of  early  youth,  which 
owed  much  of  its  force  quite  as  probably  to  unconscious  in- 
heritance as  to  any  later  influence.  The  story  of  this  love,  as 
fully  told,  was  not  encouraging  ;  Acamas  was  no  more  constant 
as  a  lover  than  his  father  Theseus.  Ever  expected  to  return 
according  to  his  promise,  he  was  looked  for  in  vain,  and 
Phyllis  destroyed  herself.  Poetry,  of  whatever  date,  told  of 
her  transformation  into  an  almond-tree,  of  which  the  prema- 
ture blossoms  await  the  dallying  leaves ;  they  burst  forth  when 
the  belated  lover  arrived  to  throw  his  arms  around  the  yet 
warm  and  not  yet  quite  unconscious  stem. 

In  the  same  year  as  the  capture  of  Ei'on  (476  B.C.,  during 
the  archonship  of  1Phaedon),  is  given  in  an  isolated  notice, 
and  very  unsatisfactory  terms,  the  disaster  of  an  Athenian 
force  under  Lysistratus,  Lycurgus,  and  Cratinus,  said  to  have 
been  destroyed  by  the  Thracians  after  their  conquest  of  Ei'on. 
If  we  accept  this  at  all,  it  must  be  as  a  corrupt  record  of  some 
serious  mishap,  after  the  reduction  of  the  place  by  Cimon,  to 
the  land  force  which  had  at  first  operated  successfully  to 
check  Thracian  attempts  to  raise  the  siege. 

More  disasters  were  to  follow  thereafter  through  a  series  of 
years,  until  the  Scholiast  of  Aeschines  could  tell  how  it  was, 
because  Demophon  had  broken  trysf  with  Phyllis  in  nine 
several  appointments — there  seems  a  hint  of  suggestion  here 
in  the  name  of  the  important  locality,  Nine  ways— that  the 
nymph  in  bitterness  had  doomed  the  Athenians  to  expiation 
by  as  many  defeats;  the  Scholiast  accurately  reckons  them  up, 

1  Schol.  Aesch.  de  Pal.  Leg. 


xv.]     ATHENIAN  PROSECUTION  OF  THE  WAR.      203 

and  so  accurately  no  doubt  would  the  ascribed  denunciation 
of  the  nymph  keep  level  pace  with  Athenian  misfortunes. 

Besides  the  general  commercial  advantages  of  such  a  posi- 
tion, the  precious  metals  of  the  adjacent  mines  were  to  prove 
too  tempting  not  to  determine  the  Athenians  to  assume,  as 
time  went  on,  the  position  and  rights  rather  of  conquerors  of 
the  Persians,  than  mere  liberators  of  their  oppressed  subjects, 
Hellenic  or  other,  the  Thasians  or  Thracians  who  had  pre- 
viously shared  these  productive  sources  of  revenue  between 
Hhem.  It  was  not  long  before,  between  claims  for  restitution 
and  resentment  at  encroachment,  they  became  very  seriously 
embroiled  with  both. 

Herodotus  makes  mention  of  another  hold  of  Persians  on 
Europe,  respecting  the  fate  of  which  there  is  considerable 
difficulty.  This  was  Doriscus,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hebrus 
eastward,  opposite  Samothrace,  on  the  border  of  the  vast  plain 
where  Xerxes  reviewed  his  army.  It  had  remained  a  Persian 
fortress  since  the  Scythian  expedition  of  Darius.  For  the 
governor  appointed  by  Darius,  Xerxes  substituted  Mascames, 
son  of  Megadostes,  and  by  him  the  post  was  so  stubbornly 
maintained,  that  after  all  the  other  Persian  officers  had 
been  rooted  out  from  Thrace  and  the  Hellespont,  he  alone 
defied  all  the  numerous  attempts  to  eject  2him.  This  is 
the  only  notice  we  find  of  the  defence  of  Doriscus;  it  is 
perhaps  presumable  that  it  came  to  an  end  at  the  death  of 
Mascames,  for  though  the  honours  that  Xerxes  accorded  him 
were  continued  by  Artaxerxes  to  his  sons,  it  does  not  follow 
that  they  succeeded  to  his  command.  The  city  of  Ainos, 
again,  a  very  short  distance  to  the  east  of  Doriscus,  was 
certainly  associated  with  3  Athens.  It  was  Mascames  probably 
who  animated  the  movement  that  Cimon  had  countervailed 
in  the  Chersonesus. 

The  future  political  position  and  influence  of  Cimon  were 

1  Herod,  ix.  75.  a  Id.  vii.  107.  3  Thuc.  iv.  28;  vii.  57. 


204  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

not  only  advanced  by  his  success  as  a  commander  in  these 
northern  wars,  but  also  by  the  brilliant  retrieval  they  induced 
of  his  private  fortune,  so  low  at  the  time  when  he  only 
inherited  the  liability  to  a  crushing  fine.  Opportunities  of 
enrichment  legitimate  enough,  from  share  of  spoil  and  so  forth, 
were  doubtless  open  ;  but  these  operations  had  moreover 
brought  under  Athenian  control  the  Chersonesus,  where 
under  other  circumstances  Cimon  might  have  succeeded  his 
father  Miltiades  as  tyrant,  and  where  the  present  would  no 
doubt  reinstate  him  at  least  in  an  extensive  proprietorship. 
It  is  thus  that,  the  embarrassment  of  the  fine  notwithstanding, 
we  read  of  him  as  indulging  in  lavishness  which  was  accepted 
as  ungradged  display  in  a  man,  if  not  of  hereditary  wealth,  yet 
of  hereditary  title  to  be  wealthy.  It  is  even  inviting  to  con- 
jecture that  he  may  have  had  some  proprietary  rights  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Ei'on ;  the  notion  is  suggested  by  curious 
hints,  so  significant  as  to  demand  collating,  of  relations  and 
relationships  to  each  other  and  to  this  part  of  Thrace,  of  the 
families  of  the  tyrants  Miltiades  and  Peisistratus  and  the 
historian  Thucydides. 

Miltiades  I  colonised  or  obtained  possession  of  the  Cherso- 
nesus, when  he  quitted  Athens  out  of  disgust  at  the  rule  of 
Peisistratus;  and  there,  after  death,  received  the  recognised 
heroic  honours  of  a  'founder' — an  OIKKTTTJS.  As  belonging  to 
the  Philaid  gens  he  claimed  descent  from  Ajax,  as  the  Aeacid 
Philaeus  had  obtained  Athenian  citizenship  and  settled  at 
Attic  J  Melite.  The  demus  Philaeus  was  connected  with  the 
same  2  hero,  and  to  this  Peisistratus  belonged.  The  gens,  not 
the  demus  of  Miltiades,  and  the  demus,  not  the  gens  of  Peisi- 
stratus, who  was  a  Nelid,  have  thus  a  common  relation  to 
Philaeus;  and  this  is  the  first  of  several  hints,  individually 
inconclusive,  of  their  connection  with  each  other.  Peisistratus 
may  indeed  have  claimed  to  rank  as  a  Philaid  also,  through 

1  Herod,  vi.  35  ;  Etym.  M.  *  Plut.  Solon,  10. 


xv.]      ATHENIAN  PROSECUTION  OF  THE  WAR.      205 

some  maternal  l  connections,  as  Pericles  was  attacked  as  an 
Alcmaeonid,  though  only  so  by  the  mother's  side.  A  half- 
brother  of  Miltiades  I,  by  the  mother's  side,  was  Cimon,  to 
whom  the  nickname  Koalemus  imputed  dulness  of  intellect. 
Of  his  father  Stesagoras  we  have  no  particulars ;  for  any- 
thing- that  appears  then,  his  descendants,  among-  them  Mil- 
tiades of  Marathon,  have  no  claim  to  the  Aeacid  descent  of 
Miltiades  the  first.  His  wealth  at  least  is  avouched  by  his 
winning  three  Olympic  chariot-races ;  he  gratified  Peisistratus 
by  causing  him  to  be  proclaimed  as  victor  for  the  second,  and 
so  gained  recall  from  banishment ;  he  disappointed  the  Peisi- 
stratidae  of  like  honour  on  the  third  occasion,  and  was  assas- 
sinated in  2consequence.  Stesagoras  II  succeeded  his  uncle 
Miltiades  I  at  the  3Chersonesus,  and  was  himself  succeeded  by 
his  brother  Miltiades  II  (515  B.C.),  in  whom  the  Peisistratids 
took  such  interest  as  to  despatch  him  thither  in  a  Hrireme.  Of 
the  concern  of  the  Peisistratidae  with  any  other  part  of  Thrace 
we  hear  nothing ;  but  Herodotus  furnishes  the  curious  and 
isolated  factj  independently  of  any  notice  of  conquest,  that 
Peisistratus  drew  considerable  revenues  from  the  5  Strymon. 

Miltiades  II,  by  a  first  and  Athenian  wife,  had  a  son  Metio- 
chus,  whose  fortunes  were  remarkable :  he  was  captured  by 
the  Persians  when  they  drove  out  his  father,  493  B.C.,  and 
Darius  either  restrained  or  gave  loose  to  resentment,  so  far  as 
to  give  him  a  Persian  wife  and  family,  and  so  denationalise 
him.  An  own  sister  of  Metiochus  was  Elpinice.  But  their 
brother  Cimon  was  the  son  of  a  second  wife,  Hegesipyle, 
daughter  of  a  king  of  Thracians — 6  Olorus. 

As  regards  Thucydides  the  historian,  he  too,  by  his  own 
statement,  was  son  of  an  Olorus;  by  that  of  7 Marcellinus, 
of  a  Hegesipyle  also;  and  according  to  the  same  authority 
and  Plutarch,  he  was  buried  in  the  '  Cimonia,'  the  family 

1  Plato,  Hipparch,  p.  288.  2  Plut.  dm.  4;  Herod,  vi.  103; 

Ael.  V.H.  ix.  32.  3  Herod,  vi.  38.  4  Id.  vi.  39.  •  Id. 

i.  121.  6  Id.  vi.  39.  7  In  i-U. 


206  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

cemetery  of  Cimon  by  the  Melite  Gate,  close  to  the  tomb  of 
Elpinice.  Thucydides,  on  his  own  showing,  had,  like  Peisi- 
stratus  before  him,  property  on  the  Strymon ;  and  x  Hermippus 
explained,  not  implausibly,  his  intimation  of  peculiar  know- 
ledge and  his  rather  anxious  tendency  concerning  the  Peisi- 
stratidae,  by  his  asserted  relationship  to  the2  family.  3  Plu- 
tarch, at  variance  with  other  authorities  who  put  the  cata- 
strophe at  Athens,  says  that  it  was  at  Scapte-hyle  that  he  was 
assassinated. 

1  Ap.  Marcdl  18 ;  Schol.  Thuc.  i.  ao.          2  Thuc.  vi.  35.         3  Cimon,  6. 


CHAPTEE    XVI. 

THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   ATHENIAN    DEMOCRACY. 

AFTEE  the  restoration  of  the  walls  of  Athens  and  the 
speedy  resettlement  of  domestic  life  and  civil  order,  the- 
ancient  local  influences  led  to  a  resumption  of  ancient  habits  ; 
but  along  with  much  that  reappeared  unaltered  from  of 
old,  there  came  up  much  that  was  surprisingly  novel,  and 
not  more  in  the  material,  than  in  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual, equipments  of  strenuous  civilisation  in  the  capacities  and 
aspirations  of  various  competing  classes.  It  was  soon  recog- 
nised by  some,  who  were  by  no  means  forward  to  invite 
innovation,  that  changes  must  be  admitted  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  political  power,  conformably  to  new  manifestations 
of  political  energy.  The  exceptional  powers  of  the  crisis 
involved  in  their  lapse  something  more  than  mere  return 
to  previous  arrangements.  In  the  difficulties  of  the  conflict, 
necessity  had  reconciled  the  citizens  to  entrusting  unusual 
discretion  to  a  restricted  body,  and  the  vigorous  tone  which 
was  in  consequence  communicated  to  the  action  of  the  state 
had  for  a  time  confirmed  the  authority,  perhaps  enhanced  the 
pretensions,  of  a  Council  which  is  referred  to  constantly  in 
general  terms  ;  we  learn  by  a  casual  notice  of  Aristotle  1  alone, 
that  this  was  not  the  Council  of  500  to  which  Miltiades  had 

1  Arist.  Polit.  v.  3,  p.  683  a. 


208  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

been  responsible  during  the  earlier  invasion,  but  the  more 
limited  Council  or  Court  of  the  Areopagus.  The  time  had 
not  yet  arrived  for  this  venerable  authority  to  be  directly 
assailed,  but  otherwise  all  traditional  respect  was  becoming 
seriously  weakened  during  the  later  prosecution  of  the  war  ;  ti 
spirit  of  proud  and  even  arrogant  self-reliance  spread  among 
the  mass  of  the  population,  when  each  man,  fighting  with 
zeal  as  if  the  event  depended  on  himself,  was  almost  per- 
suaded that  not  even  the  general  had  contributed  more  to  its 
result.  The  urgency  of  the  times  gave  opportunity  and  pro- 
minence to  men  who  never  before  had  a  chance  of  either,  but, 
when  so  put  to  the  proof,  were  as  worthy  as  the  best.  The 
urgency  of  the  strain  might  relax,  but  not  so  the  ambition  of 
the  many,  who  were  ill-content  to  fall  back  in  civil  life  into 
places  below  those  with  whom  they  had  ranked  in  the  face  of 
danger  as  equals  or  superiors  and  who  now  had  only  a  privi- 
lege to  plead  and  no  sufficient  reason.  It  was  a  familiar 
principle  and  experience  with  the  Greek,  that  political  fran- 
chise should  and  would  be  co-extensive  with  military  service ; 
and  now  for  the  first  time  a  victory  at  sea  had  been  so  im- 
portant and  so  glorious,  that  the  familiar  maxim  carried  its 
application  to  the  entire  nautical  multitude. 

The  spirit,  the  enthusiasm,  of  democratical  encroachment  at 
Athens  was  far  from  originating  in  these  events,  however 
it  might  be  revived  and  reinforced  by  them ;  the  germ  was  of 
far  earlier  origin,  had  made  good  several  stages  of  progress, 
and  to  its  movement  was  not  inconsiderably  due  the  vigour  of 
the  Athenian  patriotic  exertions  at  this  time  as  on  some  earlier 
occasions;  so  manifestly  is  concentrated  energy  associated 
with  1  freedom.  Athenian  poets  were  fond  of  dating  democra- 
tical institutions  as  far  back  as  mythical  times,  extravagantly 
enough,  though  more  plausibly  than  when  they  imputed 
Spartan  characteristics  to  the  subjects  of  Menelaus.  But 

1  Herod,  v.  78. 


xvi.]  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  SOLON.  209 

enough  of  Solon's  institutions — which,  if  within,  are  only 
just  within  the  scope  of  true  historic  ken — survived  the 
lapse  to  the  tyranny  of  Peisistratus,  to  attest  a  very  positive 
democratic  tendency,  and  indeed  intention,  and,  for  all  their 
deficiencies,  to  explain  how  he  came  to  be  regarded  in  time 
as  the  universal  legislator  and  author  of  the  Athenian  free 
constitution. 

According  to  the  conception  of  Aristotle,  what  Solon 
founded  was  indeed  worthy  of  the  high  title  of  a  proper 
polity, — a  politeia,  which  is,  in  modern  phraseology,  a  '  free 
constitution,' — inasmuch  as  it  aimed  at,  and  to  a  large  extent 
effected,  a  harmony  of  diverse  powers.  He  found  and  left  the 
council  of  the  Areopagus  with  its  general  supervision  of  morals 
and  manners  and  guardianship  of  legality;  this  was  the  Upper 
Council, — rj  aw  /3ov\i] — as  distinguished  from  a  second,  the 
Probouleutic  or  Preconsidering  Council,  which  was  elected 
annually,  and  as  its  members  held  office  for  life,  its  prin- 
ciple was  strictly  oligarchical.  Again,  the  Preconsidering 
Council,  which  was  also  of  a  time  before  Solon  and  of  which 
a  main  function  was  to  determine  and  prepare  what  business 
should  be  submitted  to  the  popular  l  ecclesia,  is  defined  by 
Aristotle,  and  even  in  virtue  of  being  elective,  and  that 
annually,  as  an  aristocratic  institution.  In  fact,  in  the  most 
democratical  of  ancient  societies  it  was  well  understood 
that  offices  which  were  obtainable  through  election  must 
needs  be  gained  by  those  who  could  intimidate  or  bribe  or 
command  deference  even  independently  of  special  qualifi- 
cations, must  fall  to  an  aristocracy  whether  of  birth  or 
of  wealth.  It  was  only  a  change  therefore  in  favour  of 
aristocracy  as  contrasted  with  oligarchy,  that  the  privilege 
of  birth  was  now  superseded  by  the  limit  of  a  high  pro- 
perty qualification.  The  democratic  element,  however,  but 
for  consideration  of  which  'the  demus  would  be  too  nearly 

1  Plut.  Solon,  19. 
p 


210  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

enslaved  for  any  tranquillity  to  be  Expected,'  was  then 
admitted  with  no  little  decision.  Of  the  four  classes  of 
citizens  upon  which  Solon  successively  imposed  an  advance 
in  his  graduated  income-tax,  the  lowest  and  most  numerous, 
although  still  remaining  incapable  of  magistracy,  was  for  the 
first  time  allowed  to  participate  in  the  full  elective  ~  franchise. 

It  was  to  his  innovation  at  this  point,  and  its  conse- 
quences that  Solon  chiefly,  and  with  a  degree  of  justice  that 
would  perhaps  have  surprised  himself,  owed  his  democratic 
fame.  By  the  demus,  thus  largely  interpreted,  magistrates 
and  functionaries,  archons  and  council,  were  elected  in  the 
first  instance,  and  to  this  demus  they  were  required,  at 
conclusion  of  their  term,  to  render  account  and  apply  for 
certificate,  undergoing  at  the  same  time  close  scrutiny. 
As  some  check  on  the  recognised  aristocratical  tendency 
of  the  accepted  conditions  of  election,  and  (so  far  in  the 
interests  of  democracy  again)  to  take  security  as  far  as 
possible  against  the  exercise  of  undue  influence  by  clubs 
and  associated  cliques,  its  dicaiteria,  or  committees  for 
special  purposes,  were  taken  from  the  general  number  by 
the  chance  of  3lot.  How  vast  was  the  power  that  such 
privileges  delivered  over  into  democratical  hands  under  able 
guidance  we  shall  see  hereafter. 

In  the  meantime,  the  liability  of  public  interests  to  be 
hampered  by  the  factious  conflicts  of  class  interests,  was  still 
overlooked  and  left  unprovided  against  by  these  arrange- 
ments. A  pre-historic  settlement  which  was  ascribed  to  The- 
seus, and  due,  if  Theseus  never  existed  or  had  no  concern  in 
it,  to  some  great  organising  genius,  had  laid  deep  foundations 
for  the  strength  if  not  predominance  of  Attica  in  Hellas,  by 
associating  the  freemen  of  its  scattered  townships  in  de- 
pendence on  the  legislature  and  courts  of  4  Athens.  This  is 
the  policy  by  which  Thales  of  Miletus  afterwards  urged  that 

1  Arirt.  66 1  ».  »  Plut.  Solon,  18. 

1  Arist.  Polit.  i.  «  Thuc.  ii.  15. 


xvr.]        THE  LEGISLATION  OF  CLEISTHENES.         211 

still  one  chance  remained  for  reinvigorating  1  Ionia ;  but 
even  suppression  of  the  narrow  rivalry  of  townships  left  un- 
eradicated  that  of  wider  districts,  a  feeling  which  was  perhaps 
only  more  likely  to  burst  forth  amongst  the  enlarged  con- 
stituencies of  Solon.-  The  political  subdivisions  that  followed 
the  natural  limits  of  highland,  lowland,  and  seaboard  districts, 
were  too  conformable  to  the.  groups  of  real  or  supposed 
conflicting  interests,  especially  between  the  poorer  and 
wealthier  citizens,  for  local  disagreements  not  to  be  re- 
produced in  compact  parties  in  the  assembly  and  there  to 
break  out  into  political  contentions.  It  was  immediately 
through  the  opportunities  which  these  provided,  that  tyranny — 
a  transformed  pernicious  demagogy — found  an  entrance,  and 
after  the  opportunity  had  been  seized  by  the  able  Peisistratus, 
never  long  relaxed  its  grasp  during  thirty  years ;  it  is  diffi- 
cult not  to  believe,  though  there  is  no  direct  evidence  of  the 
fact,  that  aid  was  rendered  by  discontents  on  the  part  of  the 
large  class  of  residents  in  Athens  and  Attica  for  whom,  as 
not  being  members  by  birth  of  any  of  the  Ionic  tribes, 
there  was  no  protection  by  political  franchise. 

When  relief  was  at  length  obtained  and  the  Peisistratids 
were  expelled,  an  heir  to  their  opportunities  and  an  aspirant 
to  their  succession  rose  up  before  long  in  Isagoras,  son  of 
Tisandros,  but  only  to  be  as  promptly  confronted  by  the 
Alcmaeonid  Cleisthenes. 

It  was  the  belief  at  Athens  that  Cleisthenes,  during  the 
time  that  he  was  at  Delphi  in  exile,  had  contributed  im- 
portantly to  their  former  liberation  from  the  son  of  Peisis- 
tratus by  inducing  the  Pythia  to  attach  to  every  response 
to  Lacedaemon,  public  or  private,  an  injunction,  which 
was  effective  at  last,  to  suppress  the  tyranny  at  Athens. 
Himself  a  grandson  of  Cleisthenes,  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  he  learnt 
a  lesson  from  his  policy,  but  only  so  to  apply  it  as  to  deprive 
tyranny  of  its  last  chance  at  Athens.  He  got  the  better  of 

1  Herod,  i.  170. 
P   2 


212  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

his  rival  Isagoras  by  '  taking  the  demus  into  J  partnership,' 
and  well  he  requited  the  assistance.  He  gave  a  safer  and  a 
broader  basis  to  the  democratical  element  of  the  constitution 
by  liberal  admission  to  citizenship  of  foreign  2metics,  that 
is  by  naturalising  resident  foreigners, — residents  no  doubt  in 
numerous  cases  of  long  standing  or  through  generations, — 
and  if  the  record  may  be  trusted,  even  foreigners  who, 
though  not  slaves,  were  servants.  By  the  latter  we  may 
understand  foreigners,  artisans  and  others,  vyho  were  free  but 
worked  for  hire,  like  many  an  Athenian  of  old  stock,  and 
who  often,  like  many  metics  of  superior  station,  might  only  be 
known  as  of  foreign  descent  by  absence  from  tribal  registry. 

Besides  thus  swamping  the  faction-infected  constituency 
by  an  extension  of  privilege  that  for  the  first  time  was 
made  independent  of  scrutiny  of  ancient  pedigree,  Cleisthenes 
furthered  his  purpose  of  giving  steadiness  to  the  state,  by 
redistribution  of  electoral  groups  and  districts.  For  the 
four  Ionic  tribes  into  which  traditions  of  worship  made  it 
impossible  to  foist  the  new  unrelated  citizens,  he  substituted 
ten,  to  which,  following  a  Sicyonian  precedent,  he  gave  new 
names,  entitling  them,  after  Attic  heroes,  as  eponymi.  Each 
tribe  comprised  a  certain  number  of  demes  or  parishes,  but  as  a 
rule  by  no  means  adjoining  each  other,  and  as  the  tribe  was 
the  electoral  unit  that  sent  its  several  representatives  to  the 
Council,  this  altered  arrangement  naturally  tended  to  a  dis- 
ruption of  ancient  partizanships  and  to  elections  on  a  better 
principle  than  the  representation  of  narrow  local  cabals. 
What  precise  scheme  of  grouping  was  employed  further  we 
are  not  told,  nor  how  acquiescence  in  such  a  disturbance 
of  ancient  associations  and  recent  alliances  was  secured. 
Traditional  family  and  religious  ties  were  beyond  legislative 
reach,  and  would  and  did  inevitably  remain  in  force;  but 
it  appears  that  some  simplified  religious  sanctions  and 

1  Herod.  T.  66-69.  *  lUromm,  Arist.  Polit.  iii.  i,  p.  66a. 


xvi.]  DEMOCRACY  AFTER  SALAMIS.  213 

celebrations,  attaching-  probably  to  the  mythic  associations 
of  the  heroic  eponymns,  were  appropriated  to  the  new  tribes, 
both  severally  and  in  x  common.  This  hint  assures  us  that 
the  policy  of  Sicyonian  Cleisthenes  in  the  same  direction  had, 
like  that  of  his  grandson,  some  motives  which  Herodotus,  if 
he  suspected,  has  at  least  not  cared  to  tell. 

The  democratic  concession  that  was  now  further  demanded 
by  what  Aristotle  calls  the  '  nautical  multitude,'  or,  to 
translate  more  honestly,  'rabble/  in  the  pride  of  their 
achievements  and  eager  for  tangible  advantage  from  the 
splendid  ascendency  that  Athens  had  won  by  their  valour 
and  perseverance,  was  the  eligibility  to  office  of  every -class 
of  citizens,  even  the  hitherto  excluded  Thetic  or  very  poorest. 
The  limit  of  this  political  privilege  originally  ruled  with 
liability  to  taxation  and  to  service  in  war  either  as  hoplite 
or  light-armed,  but  the  new  importance  of  war  service  afloat 
(if  only  as  oarsmen,  still  as  highly-trained  and  disciplined 
oarsmen)  had  now  given  the  lowest  class  a  technical  right  to 
equal  participation;  Salamis  could  be  cited,  and  was  cited 
unsparingly  and  for  ever — long  after  Comedy  had  made  a 
stock-joke  of  the  common-place — as  a  claim  to  political  power 
superior  to  every  other — to  all  others  together. 

Themistocles,  it  would  seem,  was  the  natural  vindicator 
of  the  pretensions  of  the  crews  who  were  the  main  strength 
of  his  peculiar  policy  aboard  the  navy  that  was  his  own 
creation,  and  with  whose  glory  in  their  greatest  achieve- 
ments hitherto  his  own  was  so  immediately  associated. 
That  the  truly  revolutionary  measure  that  gave  effect  to 
their  pretensions  is  connected  immediately  with  the  name, 
not  of  Themistocles  as  we  should  expect,  but  of  Aristides, 
implies  most  naturally  that  it  was  obtained  at  last  as 
a  concession  after  a  more  or  less  considerable  struggle 
of  interests  and  parties.  The  world  is  familiar  with  the 

1  Arist.  Polit.  vi.  a. 


214  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

experience  that  a  political  party  does  not  at  once  relinquish 
the  reins  of  power  because  all  independent  guidance  is  so 
utterly  lost  as.  no  longer  to  leave  choice  between  repugnant 
alternatives.  Then  the  veriest  Eupatrid  partizan,  whether  by 
descent  or  predilection,  can  anticipate  sagaciously  at  last, 
though  it  may  be  only  after  prolonged  resistance  has  proved 
useless,  that  from  the  vantage-ground  he  holds  the  influence 
of  class  may  be  made  to  tell  but  little  less  effectively  in  the 
new  state  of  things  than  in  the  old.  Aristides,  there  can  be 
little  doubt,  was  superior  to  many  if  not  most  of  the  Eupatrid 
party  with  whom  he  acted  and  who  were  brought  over  to 
this  concession;  otherwise  a  Eupatrid  is  not  unfrequently 
developed  into  something  very  like  a  revolutionist  by  well- 
grounded  confidence  that  his  personal  genius — let  his  class 
fare  as  it  may — will  secure  his  own  leadership  all  the  more 
certainly  from  the  exaggerated  violence  that  he  volunteers 
to  hold  under  restraint ;  and  then  there  is  the  case  of  the 
politician  who  can  foresee  and  dares  to  face  the  fact  that 
the  thing  must  be,  accepts  the  risk  with  the  resolution  to 
deal  with  consequences  as  best  he  may  when  they  arrive — as 
some  one  must  deal  with  them — and  in  the  meantime  keenly 
appreciates  the  mere  exercise  of  power  in  carrying  through 
a  great  measure  however  inconsistently  adopted  by  him,  and 
knows  that  popular  gratitude  does  not  look  back  beyond  the 
hand  from  which  it  actually  takes  its  benefit  at  last. 

In  the  case  of  Themistocles,  it  is  probably  not  unfair  to 
ascribe  some  of  the  persistency  in  democratical  purpose  which, 
notwithstanding  his  advance  in  fame  and  fortune,  he  con- 
tinues to  give  proof  of  still  later,  to  the  circumstances  of 
his  origin.  He  was  comparatively  to  his  most  powerful 
competitors  a  new  man  ;  and  neither  by  marriage  nor 
descent  connected  with  any  of  the  historical  Eupatrid 
families  to  which,  notwithstanding  their  notorious  con- 
servative tendencies,  all  political  parties  were  still  accustomed 
and  best  content  to  look  in  the  first  instance  for  leaders 


xvi.]  OLIGARCHY  UNDER  DEMOCRACY.  215 

and  statesmen.  He  was  of  an  old  Attic  race  of  Lycomidae, 
but  no  brilliance  accrued  to  him  thence  that  would  com- 
pensate for  some  defect  in  Attic  purity  on  the  side  of  his 
mother,  whether  of  Thracian  or  Carian  blood,  or  for  the 
limitation  of  his  fortune,  which  originally  did  not  exceed 
three  talents.  These  disadvantages  had  come  home  to  him 
very  early  in  life,  but  only  to  exercise  him  early  in  breaking 
down  by  force  of  resolution  and  genius  some  social  barriers 
that  divided  even  the  palaestra. 

As  regards  the  elements  of  the  less  eagerly  innovating  and 
the  conservative  parties,  it  must  always  be  understood  and 
borne  in  mind  that  at  this  period  at  Athens,  as  in  other 
important  states  of  Hellas,  there  ever  lived  on  the  germ  of — 
more  than  oligarchical — even  dangerous  and  tyrannous  reac- 
tion, confined  to  a  few  it  may  be,  discouraged,  discredited, 
latent,  vehemently  disclaimed  of  course  by  many  who  amongst 
themselves  were  consciously  sympathetic,  and  disallowed  by 
the  superficial  as  having  any  real  existence ;  but  it  was  of 
indestructible  vitality  nevertheless,  and  moreover  instinctively 
and  nervously  dreaded  by  the  new  inheritors  of  power,  even 
while  they  were  laughing  with  the  comedian  who  ridiculed  it 
as  an  obsolete  absurdity.  The  intrigues  at  Plataea  were  of 
recent  memory ;  but  even  the  earlier  sting  of  the  Peisistratid 
tyranny,  so  we  are  assured  by  l  Thucydides,  lingered  in  the 
wound  that  shuddered  at  a  touch,  and  an  oligarchical  tyranny 
came  round  in  time  to  justify  the  popular  resolve  that,  with 
an  assignable  reason  or  without,  the  experience  should  never 
be  forgot. 

Any  seeds  of  such  desperate  hope  among  Eupatrids  could 
only  be  entertained  furtively,  as  in  absolute  opposition 
to  a  more  powerful  section,  which  was  represented  now 
by  Aristides,  Cimon,  and  Ephialtes,  who  honestly  aimed 
to  make  the  oligarchical  and  aristocratical  conditions  of 
the  government  work  harmoniously  with  the  democratical, 

1  Thuc.  vi.  53. 


216  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

which  they  strove  to  restrain  or  regulate  when  they  might 
not  rule.  Of  Ephialtes  son  of  Sophonides  we  know  too 
little;  in  his  poverty  and  highmindedness  he  is  a  parallel 
to  his  associate  Aristides.  He  is  said  to  have  protected 
his  independence  even  against  his  own  party  by  refusing 
the  ten  talents  with  which  they  would  have  increased 
his  1  means.  Another  colleague  of  Aristides,  who  is  to 
us  but  a  name,  is  Alcmaeon,  but  a  name  that  intimates 
connection  with  the  great  Alcmaeonid  family,  of  which 
Xanthippus,  who  is  not  heard  of  in  these  transactions,  was 
at  present  the  protagonist,  and  Pericles  after  a  few  years 
was  destined  to  be.  With  this  family  Cimon,  who  had  a 
noble  pedigree  of  his  own,  was  connected  by  marriage. 
These  were  times  of  scrupulous  records  of  relationships  by 
the  phratries,  of  formal  and  religious  celebrations  of  births, 
and  of  commemorations  of  deaths  in  worship  of  remoter 
and  immediate  ancestries;  and  records  so  long  back  were 
so  preserved  as  to  seem  to  authenticate  the  claims  by 
which  they  were  attached  to  primeval  ages  and  heroes. 
A  descent  from  Ajax  or  from  Hercules  was  claimed  and 
conceded  in  such  cases  with  perfect  faith  on  both  sides ; 
to  the  claimant  it  gave  an  ideal  to  emulate,  an  obligation 
which  Pindar's  odes  take  for  granted  in  every  strophe,  the 
influence  of  which  is  seen  in  the  numerous  great  names  that 
cluster  round  these  associations.  Such  recognised  descent 
was  a  real  power  in  politics ;  it  imparted  special  grace  to 
well-assumed  popular  manners,  and  the  most  democratical 
accorded  to  it  some  indulgence  in  extravagance  and  even 
licence,  forgave  it  more  and  forgot  for  it  more  and  more 
readily  than  in  other  instances  of  merely  equal  desert. 
And  so  in  Athens,  as  elsewhere,  democracy  had  a  certain 
affection — a  very  weakness — for  the  guidance  and  leadership 
of  an  aristocrat  by  birth. 

1  Aeliau,  xi.  9 ;  V.  Max.  iii.  8  ex.  4. 


xvi.]  ARISTOCRACY  IN  DEMOCRACY.  217 

The  faith,,  one  might  almost  say  the  sense,  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  mythological  with  historical  and  current  times,  was 
all  but  universally  prevalent,  and  few  politicians  of  power 
before  Themistocles  are  found  independent  of  it.  Solon 
himself  was  reputed  a  Codrid ;  Peisistratus,  said  also  to 
be  his  relative,  was  a  Nelid;  both  thus  connected  with 
the  families  that  first  had  reigned  at  Athens  and  then 
given  leaders  and  kings  to  the  Ionian  colonies.  The 
Alcmaeonids  also  carried  up  their  genealogy  to  Neleus, 
with  Nestor,  not  to  say  Poseidon,  still  in  the  background. 
This  family  furnishes  Megacles,  the  slayer  of  Cylon; 
Alcmaeon,  the  guest  of  Croesus ;  Megacles,  the  son-in-law 
of  Cleisthenes  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  in  a  line  that  had  ruled 
there,  not  undeservedly,  for  one  hundred  years;  Cleisthenes, 
the  founder  of  Athenian  democracy;  his  sister  married  to 
Peisistratus,  but  only  to  increase  of  discord ;  Agariste, 
wife  of  Xanthippus  and  mother  of  Pericles;  Deinomache, 
wife  of  Cleinias  and  mother  of  Alcibiades ;  and  Isodice,  wife 
of  Cimon. 

The  father  of  Cleinias  was  the  earlier  Alcibiades,  who  was 
the  colleague  of  Cleisthenes,  and  on  his  part  claimed  descent 
from  Eurysaces,  son  of  Ajax.  Another  traditional  son  of 
Ajax  and  fellow-settler  in  Attica  was  Philaeus,  whom  the 
first  Miltiades  claimed  as  ancestor, — as,  by  the  mother's 
side  at  least,  did  the  second  also,  his  successor  in  tyranny 
of  the  Chersonesus,  the  victor  at  Marathpn,  and  father  of 
Cimon  by  a  daughter  of  a  Thracian  prince. 

Cf  the  remoter  ancestry  of  Aristides  we  hear  nothing, 
but  he  was  at  least  related  to  the  wealthy  Callias,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  order  to  which  the 
colleague  of  the  reforming  Alcmaeonid  Cleisthenes  must 
have  belonged. 

We  now  learn  from  Plutarch  that l  Cimon,  who  had  acted 

1  Plut.  dm.  10. 


218  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

in  harmony  with  Aristides  at  the  Hellespont,  made  common 
cause  with  him  at  home  to  resist  the  extreme  democratic 
measures  which  Themistocles  was  urging  forward,  and  so 
commenced  a  new  rivalry  that  was  destined  to  have  im- 
portant consequences.  At  present  the  command  lay  with 
Themistocles ;  the  passion  for  the  development  of  democracy 
was  ablaze,  and  no  other  public  man  was  found  to  lend  aid  of 
any  importance  to  countervail  it  but  Ephialtes.  His  views 
in  this  direction  and  at  the  present  time,  as  a  partizan  of 
Aristides  and  Cimon,  were  probably  as  perfectly  in  harmony 
with  those  of  the  Alcmaeonids,  as  when  at  a  later  date  he 
was  in  opposition  to  Cimon  and  promoted  an  assault  upon 
the  time-honoured  privileges  of  the  Areopagus  in  concert 
with  Pericles. 

To  what  extent  the  policy  of  Themistocles  may  have  been 
checked  by  such  an  opposition,  what  other  concessions  may 
have  been  made  to  it  besides  the  opening  of  the  elections  to 
magistracy,  or  indeed  whether  any,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
But  the  direction  in  which  progress  was  being  made  was  at 
any  rate  certain  and  is  known  to  us,  and  led,  sooner  or  later, 
to  such  further  changes  as  the  application  of  the  demo- 
cratic lot  to  the  elections  of  Archons  and  even  members  of 
the  Council  (Boule),  and  important  reductions  of  the  powers 
and  privileges  of  both. 

The  progress  of  constitutional  change  at  Athens,  the  anti- 
cipation of  which  is  necessary  for  a  clear  apprehension  of  the 
import  of  its  present  condition,  is  thus  sketched  by  Aristotle : 
'  When  the  power  of  the  popular  dicastery  came  to  be  fully 
recognised,  the  demus  received  all  the  court  that  is  payable  to 
a  tyrant,  and  so  the  polity  (the  duly  regulated  Constitution) 
was  turned  into  the  democracy  that  we  are  witnesses  of.'  One 
demagogue  after  another  helped  a  little;  but  the  decisive 
blow  was  struck  when  Pericles  and  Ephialtes  '  docked '  the 
powers  of  the  Areopagitic  Council,  and  habitual  participation 


xvi.]  DEMOCRACY  ESTABLISHED.  219 

in  the  dicastery  was  opened  to  the  very  poorest  by  carrying  a 
1  payment. 

At  present,  however,  the  step  in  legislation  which  if  not 
promoted  by  Themistocles,  was  certainly  carried  by  Aristides 
in  the  direction  of  his  policy,  introduced  a  period  of  tran- 
quillity, and  Athens  for  a  time  had  leisure  from  internal  dis- 
sensions, as  well  as  from  conflicts  with  Persia. 

Questions  of  policy  in  abundance,  that  would  open  serious 
struggles  for  supremacy  of  thought  and  action,  were  certain 
to  arise  full  soon,  with  respect  to  the  prosecution  of  aggres- 
sive war  with  Persia,  the  treatment  of  the  lately  Medising 
states,  the  management  of  the  Delian  confederacy,  the  atti- 
tude to  be  maintained  relatively  to  Sparta  and  her  special 
allies,  and  so  forth ;  but  in  the  meantime  Hellas  took  a  long 
free  breath  after  her  unwonted  effort,  and,  while  her  strength 
and  population  were  being  insensibly  restored,  found  vent  for 
the  enthusiasm  of  her  triumph  in  an  outburst  of  energy 
applied  to  Arts  which,  after  long  maturing,  now  suddenly 
leapt  to  perfection,  within  the  limits  of  a  single  lifetime. 

1  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9,  p.  66 1  a.  • 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

POETRY,    LYRIC   AND   DRAMATIC,   IN  THE   AGE   OF   THEMISTOCLES. 
PINDAR,   PHRYNICHTJS,    AESCHYLUS. 

476  B.C.;  01.  76.  I. 

AT  the  summer  solstice  of  476  B.C.,  under  the  commencing 
archonship  at  Athens  of  Phaedon,  came  round  the  first  cele- 
bration of  the  Olympic  games  since  the  great  victories  of 
Salamis,  Plataea,  and  Mycale,  since  the  time  when  Xerxes  at 
Thermopylae  enquired  how  the  Greeks  were  occupied,  and 
the  reply  had  elicited  a  foreboding  as  to  the  dangerous  quali- 
ties of  opponents  who  could  strain  energies  to  the  utmost,  not 
for  the  sake  of  a  prize  in  money,  but  to  gain  the  honour  of  a 
simple  olive  l  crown.  Again  recurred  the  festival  which  was 
the  most  expressive  pledge  of  Hellenic  unity ;  when  Greece 
was  free  from  intestine  conflicts,  and,  moreover,  in  the  first 
glow  of  self-gratulation  and  pride  at  delivery  from  a  foreign 
enemy.  If  jealousies  between  her  states  could  ever  be  lulled 
at  all,  surely  it  might  be  now ;  and,  in  fact,  when  Themisto- 
cles  appeared  at  the  stadium,  the  contests  that  were  proceeding 
were  disregarded — he  was  hailed  with  a  general  outburst  of 
applause,  and  throughout  the  day  was  followed  and  proudly 
pointed  out  to  admiring  strangers.  His  nature  was  peculiarly 
susceptible  of  pleasure  from  such  homage,  and  he  professed  to 
his  friends  that  Hellas  had  herein  fully  compensated  him  for 
all  his  labours.  He  was,  however,  by  no  means  a  man  to 

1  Herod,  viii.  76. 


POETRY  IN  THE  AGE  OF  TUEMISTOCLES.     221 

disregard  more  material  compensations;  and  the  very  rapid 
progress  of  his  fortune  showed  conclusively  that  he  knew 
well  how  to  opportunely  help  himself.  A  fragment  of  an 
attack  upon  him  remains  which  attests  both  his  passion  for 
display,  in  spite  perhaps  of  the  inadequate  means  he  once 
could  command  for  it,  and  by  what  dealings  he  was  accused 
of  providing  these  means  to  an  extent  that  had  certainly 
enabled  him  by  this  time  to  undertake  the  most  chargeable 
public  offices. 

Timocreon,  the  melopoios  of  Rhodes,  complains  in  bitter 
verses,  which  apparently  date  before  the  disgraces  of  Pausanias 
and  Leotychides,  of  the  falsehood,  injustice,  and  treachery  of 
Themistocles — of  Themistocles  who,  when  propitiated  by  only 
a  moderate  sum,  did  not  care  to  restore  him,  his  friend  and 
host,  to  his  native  lalysus,  but  for  the  sake  of  three  talents 
that  he  sailed  away  with,  recalled  some  from  exile,  banished 
others,  and  put  others  to  death,  without  regard  to  justice. 
'  Praise  Pausanias,  or  Xanthippus,  or  Leotychides  who  will ; 
he,  for  his  part,  applauds  Aristides  as  the  singly  most  excel- 
lent man  of  all  who  came  from  sacred  Athens.  Themistocles 
is  the  detestation  of  ^atona.'  He  further  ridicules  the  shabby 
entertainment  that  Themistocles  had  given  at  the  Isthmus, 
when  the  guests  prayed  that  it  might  not  be  an  apt  omen  for 
the  coming  harvest. 

Meagreness  on  this  occasion,  however,  may  have  been  but 
the  parsimony  of  an  ostentatious  man,  who  does  not  care  to  be 
lavish  when  ostentation  will  not  have  the  reward  he  chiefly 
covets.  At  Olympia,  but  probably  four  years  later. than  our 
present  date,  he  made  such  a  show  of  magnificence  as  to  be 
provocative  at  home  of  dangerous  dissatisfaction. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  think  we  must  assign  to  this  present 
Olympiad  his  own  encouragement  of  popular  indignation 
against  Hiero,  tyrant  of  Syracuse.  It  is  precisely  this  date 

1  Plut.  Them.  ai. 


222  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

that  is  given  for  the  subversion  by  Hiero  of  the  Ionic  city  of 
Cat  ana  ;  he  had  transferred  the  inhabitants  in  a  body  to 
Leontini,  and  was  proceeding  to  settle  in  their  stead  a  new 
colony  of  Dorians  in  a  city  with  a  new  name,  Aetna,  where  he 
should  enjoy  for  all  time  the  heroic  honours  which  by  ancient 
cnstom  were  accorded  to  a  founder — an  oikistes.  Syracuse 
furnished  half  the  new  population,  the  other  half  he  invited 
from  Peloponnesus.  It  is  quite  intelligible  that  such  arbitrary 
courses  at  such  a  time  should  have  encouraged  a  denunciation 
of  his  ostentatious  magnificence,  as  the  offensive  intrusion  of  a 
tyrant  among  Hellenic  freemen,  to  the  ruin  of  his  tent  and 
exclusion  of  his  horses  from  the  l  contest. 

The  victory  of  Theron,  tyrant  of  Acragas,  with  the  four- 
horse  chariot, — that  triumph  that  still  remained  to  be  coveted 
by  Hiero  when  he  was  victor  with  the  single  horse  in  the 
next  2 Olympiad, — is  usually  assigned  to  this  occasion,  though 
an  argument  may  be  combined  that  would  transfer  it  to  the 
next,  and  is  perhaps  worth  stating,  though  I  have  disregarded 
it  elsewhere.  The  testimony  of  the  scholiast  halts  between 
the  two  dates,  and  cannot  be  adduced  as  deciding  for  either ; 
that  Diodorus  dates  the  death  of  Theron  in  the  very  year 
of  the  next  Olympic  festival  might  doubtless  seem  incon-v 
sistent  with  the  elaborate  poetic  celebration  of  the  victory  by 
Pindar,  though  not  necessarily  with  the  victory  itself.  But 
the  year,  as  reckoned  by  archons,  commenced  at  the  same 
season  as  the  games,  and  the  terms  of  the  ode  are  quite 
susceptible  of  being  interpreted  to  imply  that  Theron  was 
at  the  time  declining  in  health,  was  not  remote  from  the  same 
anticipated  migration  to  those  rewards  of  the  just  that  Pindar 
here  so  beautifully  indicates,  and  that  he  did  not  deem  it 
inappropriate  to  promise  afterwards  still  more,  and  yet  scarcely 
more  pointedly,  to  Hiero,  when  he  too  was  touching  on  the 
fatal  3term. 

1  Pint.  Them.  »  Find.  01.  i,  sub  6n.  *  Find.  Pgth.  iii. 


xvii.]  THE  ACME  OF  PINDAR.  223 

One  short  but  very  beautiful  ode  of  Pindar  remains  to 
us  that  is  certified  as  written  for  a  victory  gained  this  year 
in  the  stadium  of  boys  by  Asopichus,  of  Orchomenus  in 
1  Boeotia. 

Lyric  poetry  had  now  touched  its  very  acme  in  Pindar,  who 
at  the  age  of  forty-five  was  in  the  full  might  and  glory  of  his 
genius.  Theban  by  birth,  and  from  early  years  the  associate, 
as  poets  had  ever  been  up  to  this  time  in  Greece,  of  aristo- 
cracies and  tyrants, — of  Aleuads  in  Thessaly,  of  Alexander  in 
Macedon,  of  Hiero  and  Theron  in  Sicily,  of  Arcesilaus  in 
Gyrene, — there  is  not  a  line  in  his  preserved  works  that  can 
be  strictly  challenged  as  unnational,  unpatriotic,  unworthy  of 
a  spokesman  who  has  at  heart  the  best  interests  of  general 
Hellas.  Tradition  retains  at  least  a  rumour  that  if  he  ever 
offended  party  feeling  at  all,  it  was  at  his  native  Thebes,  by 
expression  of  sympathy  with  the  Hellenic  services  of  hostile 
Athens.  He  recognised  it  as  the  function  of  the  lyric  poet 
to  shed  the  glow  of  poetry  over  every  occasion  and  incident  of 
contemporary  life  that  was  worthy  of  a  noble  interest,  to 
exalt  and  purify  the  feelings  it  excited,  to  dignify  motive  and 
aspiration,  and  represent  humanity  as  then  only  verging 
towards  its  natural  perfection,  when  it  tended  to  realise  in 
itself  as  far  as  possible  the  best  conception  it  could  form  of 
the  divine. 

The  extant  remains  of  the  poet  are  almost  exclusively  odes 
on  occasion  of  victories  in  the  games ;  hymns,  paeans,  dithy- 
rambs in  honour  of  gods,  and  hymenaeals  congratulatory  of 
men,  and  threnes  or  dirges  that  were  consolatory,  not  without 
promise  of  a  better  life,  are  lost  to  us  but  for  fragments — 
fragments  that  enhance  our  regret  for  what  has  been  in  part 
engulfed  by  the  common  injuries  of  time,  but  partly  destroyed 
wilfully  by  fanaticism. 

In  prolific  variety  of  metrical  arrangement  and  mastery  of 

1  Find.  Olym.  xiv. 


224  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

rhythm,  Pindar  was  and  still  is  without  a  rival;  the  secret 
of  his  art  in  this  direction  must  he  considered  as  still,  after  all 
the  labour  and  learning  bestowed  upon  it,  very  imperfectly 
explained.  The  key  to  it  is  probably  lost  with  the  secret 
of  the  music  which  originally  accompanied  the  poetry,  and 
was  indeed  a  very  important  part  of  the  composition  of  the 
poet.  It  was  also  the  poet's  part  to  train  the  choruses  by 
whom  his  odes  were  sung,  and  to  instruct  them  in  sedulous 
rehearsals ;  and  what  we  miss  now  of  the  '  immortal  man,' 
with  only  the  written  words  before  us,  is  comparable  in  a 
degree  to  the  enhancement,  lost  for  ever,  which  Shakespear 
superadded  to  his  dramas  by  direct  communication  to  the 
original  actors  of  the  effects  he  aimed  at,  and  his  conceptions 
of  how  they  were  to  be  produced. 

That  the  music  did  not  interfere  with  the  perfect  hearing 
of  the  words  is  most  certain,  so  delicate  are  the  transitions,  so 
uncompromising  are  the  suspensions  of  the  theme  for  the  sake 
of  divergence,  to  what  are  in  truth  indispensable  and  height- 
ening, although  to  the  unintelligent  unintelligibly  irrelevant 
episodes. 

Simonides,  who  was  held  worthy  to  be  a  rival  of  Pindar,  and 
even  to  have  surpassed  him  in  pathos, — the  fragment  of  his 
'Danae'  approves  the  tradition, — was  now  at  the  end  of  a  long 
life;  but  even  as  late  as  4766.0.,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  is  recorded 
as  victor  with  a  dithyrambic  chorus.  The  chief  remains  of 
him  that  we  possess — and  however  brief,  at  least  complete  in 
themselves — are  the  elegiac  inscriptions  or  epigraphs,  many 
applying  to  the  incidents  of  the  Persian  war,  in  which  his 
combined  ingenuity,  propriety,  and  terseness  were  unrivalled. 
Simonides,  like  Pindar,  was  familiar  with  the  courts  of  the 
Sicilian  tyrants,  as  he  had  previously  been  with  those  of  Hip- 
parchus  at  Athens  and  of  the  Thessalian  dynasts.  It  was 
only  at  a  centre  where  wealth  was  abundant  and  willingly 
lavished  upon  refined  superfluities,  that  lyrical  art,  at  the 
degree  of  elaboration  it  had  now  attained  to,  could  be  fur- 


xvn.]  POETRY  USDER  THE  TYRANTS.  225 

nished  with  means  and  opportunities  for  its  fullest  display. 
A  composition  of  Simonides  might  require  a  chorus  of  fifty 
performers,  who  were  to  be  carefully  and  expensively  trained, 
and  the  requirement  would  be  vain  unless  such  productions 
were  frequent  and  habitual ;  it  required  also  an  audience  of 
refined  sensibilities  and  culture,  such  as  in  any  state  of  society 
must  be  exceptional,  and  which  during  the  earlier  period,  when 
popular  aspirations  were  under  strong  repression,  was  found 
in  highest  perfection  among  those  who,  few  or  many,  were 
elevated  above  the  general  mass  as  an  aristocracy,  and  en- 
grossed participation  in  active  government. 

The  almost  universal  sentiment  for  artistic  beauty  which  at 
this  time  prevailed  among  the  Greeks  of  all  races  and  classes 
was  naturally  most  lively  amongst  the  families  of  hereditary 
culture  and  wealth,  the  same  from  which,  if  not  by  virtue, 
not  slightly  by  the  aid  of  their  sympathy  with  popular 
tendencies  in  the  like  direction,  had  ever  come  forth  the 
men  who  gained  command  of  their  states  as  tyrants.  Hiero 
was  preceded  in  his  love  and  patronage  of  art  by  such  men 
as  Peisistratus  at  Athens,  Cleisthenes  at  Sicyon,  Polycrates  at 
Samos,  Periander  at  Corinth,  to  mention  no  more  men,  who, 
by  their  furtherance  of  what  Greeks  had  so  much  at  heart, 
seemed  almost  to  vindicate  their  position.  The  continuance 
of  such  rule  would  no  doubt  have  been  presently  fatal  to 
much  for  which  the  best  art  affords  only  poor  compensation  ; 
and  the  better  art  itself  was  imperilled  seriously.  Under 
such  circumstances,  when,  in  a  second  generation,  nobler 
impulses — which  can  only  for  a  time  and  under  a  deception  be 
associated  with  usurpation — are  flagging  or  extinct,  it  cannot 
but  decline  to  a  purely  personal  and  parasitical  application. 
Hiero  and  Theron  are  to  be  expedited  with  personal  qualities 
and  patriotic  services  that  go  very  far  to  excuse,  if  not  to 
vindicate  the  enthusiasm  of  Pindar;  but  it  is  well  that  he 
was  not  committed  to  celebrate  their  immediate  successors. 

When  tyranny  was  abolished  throughout  Greece,  from  end 


226  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

to  end,  the  fortunes  of  art  in  its  most  elaborate  and  expensive 
developments  were  rescued  primarily  from  wreck  by  the  care 
and  appreciation  of  the  same  class  from  which  the  tyrants  had 
sprung — by  such  families  as  the  Alcmaeonids,  who  were  even 
allied  to  them,  whose  wealth  had  enabled  them  to  contend  in 
the  chariot-races  at  Olympia,  and  even  when  they  were  in 
exile  to  promote  gratuitously  the  enhancement  of  the  archi- 
tectural splendour  of  Delphi.  A  democracy  that  such  men 
founded  or  fostered  was  not  likely  to  miss  them  as  its  leaders 
and  administrators ;  and  they  '  took  the  people  into  partner- 
ship,' to  extend  the  words  of  Herodotus,  in  their  artistic 
projects  now,  as  before  in  their  revolutionary.  The  guiding 
minds  might  still  be  aristocratical,  might  still  be  in  many 
social  respects  an  exclusive  few ;  but  not  only  was  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  people  asked  and  obtained,  but  their  sympathies 
too  were  regarded,  were  appealed  to,  and  the  result  left  little 
discontent  at  what  in  effect  was  equivalent  to  a  delegation  of 
popular  control ;  and  this  was  especially  the  case  when  the 
fund  disbursed  was  less  immediately  from  the  public  treasury 
than  from  private  fortunes. 

The  system  of  the  '  liturgies,'  or  services  for  the  public,  by 
which  this  was  brought  about,  seems  to  have  been  at  least  as 
old  as  Solon,  and  may  have  been  one  of  his  political  inven- 
tions. It  was  the  principle  of  this  institution  that  citizens 
of  exceptional  wealth  were  liable  to  be  called  on,  out  of  the 
tribes  in  rotation,  to  make  exceptional  contributions  to  the 
public  service ;  for  the  equipment  of  a  war  vessel  only  occa- 
sionally, but  in  usual  and  regular  order  to  furnish  forth  public 
spectacles  and  festivals  and  amusements.  Such  a  demand  is 
manifestly  an  extension  of  Solon's  graduated  property-tax, 
and  in  principle  challenges  a  like  justification.  At  Athens  at 
least  the  institution  seems  to  have  had  the  justification  of 
success,  and  there  is  no  slight  case  to  be  made  for  the  prin- 
ciple as  demanding  even  general  application.  It  is  too  usually 
the  opprobrium  of  civilised  communities  that,  by  whose  fault 


xvii.]  LITURGIES  AND  CORRECTIVE  TAXATION.    227 

or  unwisdom  soever,  a  large  mass  of  the  population,  which 
subserves  the  social  requirements  not  unimportantly,  though 
in  the  lowest  functions,  receives  no  more  advantage  from  the 
imposing  result  than  if  civilisation  did  not  exist ;  with  regard 
to  this  large  section  at  least,  civilisation  is  a  failure.  Count 
up  the  numbers,  and  they  are  a  vast  nation  that  lags  behind 
in  squalor  and  hopelessness ;  shall  it  be  said,  as  a  necessary 
condition  of  the  grace  and  glory  of  the  superior  ranks,  any 
more  than  are  their  own  crapulence  and  gaudiness  or  the 
merely  self-indulgent  listlessness  which  misuses  a  superflux  so 
sorely  missed  elsewhere?  What  the  narrower  political  economy 
insists  on  as  the  natural  laws  of  the  distribution  of  wealth,  are 
no  more  to  be  trusted  to  bring  out  spontaneously,  without  any 
adjustment  of  human  intelligence,  the  fairest  or  the  most  de- 
sirable result,  than  are  any  other  natural  laws.  In  this,  as  in 
so  many  other  cases,  the  opportunity  and  the  faculty  of  regu- 
lative power  that  is  confided  to  us  demands  to  be  taken  into 
account,  and  '  the  art  itself  is  nature/  It  is  in  perfect  ac- 
cordance with  natural  laws  for  the  water-shed  which  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  fertility  of  a  district,  to  form,  if  left  to 
itself,  pestiferous  marshes  or  desolating  inundations.  To  say 
nothing  of  disgrace,  society  may  be  threatened  by  dangers  as 
serious,  through  the  aggregation  of  wealth  by  one  accident  or 
another  in  a  single  or  a  few  extravagant  masses,  or  even  by 
such  an  unchecked  irrational  apportionment  of  the  results  of 
labour  among  the  labourers  as  constantly  ensues  even  when 
competition  seems  most  free.  The  division  even  then,  though 
under  all  the  forms  of  peace  and  legality,  is  sometimes  of  the 
nature  of  a  promiscuous  scramble  and  sometimes  of  a  lottery,  and 
the  shares  prove  at  last  to  be  only  coarsely  proportionate  to 
the  values  of  the  co-operating  labour,  either  mental  or  manual. 
It  is  not  however  the  sense  of  very  palpable  injustice  that 
has  usually  induced  a  legislative  interference;  sufferers  and  spec- 
tators alike  are  rather  apt  to  acquiesce  in  this  as  a  hardship 
inherent  in  the  inevitable  course  of  the  world ;  but  the  extreme 


228  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  social  contrast  engenders  blind  discontents  and  violences 
which  cannot  be  disregarded,  and  the  prudent  dealing  with 
which  at  once  postulates  the  main  principle  of  corrective  tax- 
ation. Corrective  self- taxation — the  dispensing  of  alms — has 
always  been  applied,  however  unequally,  rudely,  wastefully ;  and 
in  modern  times  we  are  most  familiar  with  attempts  to  redeem 
wild  nature  by  the  application  of  funds  raised  by  taxation  to 
the  relief,  somewhat  indiscriminately  it  must  be  said,  of  the 
destitute  victims  of  misfortune  or  of  vice.  Further  applica- 
tions of  the  principle  come  in  when  the  gathered  gains  of 
commerce  are  mulcted  in  a  poor  subsidy  to  a  genius  or  his 
descendants,  or  the  well-to-do  and  wealthy  are  taxed  not  only 
to  support  but  to  educate  the  poor,  or  for  the  adornment 
of  parks  and  establishment  of  public  galleries  to  afford  recrea- 
tion chiefly  to  classes  that  are  much  too  poor  to  be  in  any 
sense  contributory.  So  does  the  prudence  at  least,  if  not  the 
obligation  quite  so  readily,  become  in  some  degree  recognised, 
of  giving  more  unity  to  the  system  of  society  by  a  better 
diffusion  of  enjoyment  as  well  as  comfort,  than  is  the  outcome 
of  the  vaunted,  of  the  so  often  misstated  and  misunderstood, 
law  of  supply  and  demand. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  danger  of  adjustment  de- 
generating in  ungoverned  hands  into  confiscation ;  and  the 
historical  outcry — pattern  et  circenses — is  warning  that  justice 
itself  had  need  be  very  wise  if  the  sinews  of  industry  are  not 
to  be  relaxed  and  the  remedy  of  civil  discord  not  fordo  itself. 

The  leiturgia  was  an  ancient  contrivance  for  equalising  in 
some  degree  the  advantages  of  civil  society,  at  least  for  dis- 
tributing some  of  the  best  of  them,  and  went  far  to  reconcile 
free  poverty,  if  not  penury,  to  co-existence  with  a  class  of 
acquired  or  hereditary  opulence.  Opulence  on  its  own  part 
had  a  pride  which  was  compensated  by  the  opportunity  of 
public  display — a  pride  which  was  not  ignoble  when  its  gratifi- 
cation depended  on  addressing  successfully  the  acute  sense 
and  fastidious  taste  of  such  a  public  as  the  Athenians.  These 


xvii.]  THEMISTOCLES  A  CHORAGUS.  229 

functions  were  no  doubt  often  burdensome  enough,  though 
only  through  ambitious  competition  ruinous  ;  if  there  were 
some  to  complain,  there  were  more  to  rejoice,  who  were  eager 
for  the  distinction,  and  prepared  with  hearty  good-will  even  to 
damage  their  fortunes  seriously.  The  prize  was  certainly  not 
always  bare  renown,  and  sometimes  the  influence  that  ensued 
upon  a  great  success  was  counted  on  to  more  than  reinstate 
the  outlay ;  but  even  so,  the  renown  was  the  basis  of  the 
influence. 

In  England  the  costly  entertainments  of  a  mayoralty  but 
weakly  represent,  or  rather  parody,  the  Athenian  tribal  liturgy ; 
and  modern  instances  of  noble  employment  of  immense  wealth 
are  not  so  frequent  as  to  have  ceased  to  be  matters  of  surprise. 
We  have  otherwise,  in  substitution  of  the  ancient  system,  only 
the  precarious  enforcement  by  public  opinion  of  aids  to  chari- 
ties that  spare  an  intermediate  class,  or  of  contributing  to  the 
amusement  of  a  class  still  narrower  by  '  hunting  a  county.' 
The  Italian  opera  lives  by  exceptionally  liberal  subscriptions 
of  the  wealthy,  but  not  out  of  public  spirit  or  to  the  relief  of 
very  extended  public  participation ;  the  higher  drama  lan- 
guishes, or  rather  is  extinct,  in  default  of  unmercenary  sup- 
port and  subvention. 

The  most  chargeable  of  all  the  ordinary  Athenian  liturgies 
was  the  dramatic — the  Choragia — of  which  the  first  mention 
occurs  in  the  year  476  B.C.,  just  preceding  the  present 
Olympia,  and  associated  with  the  name  of  Themistocles  as 
Choragus.  The  inscription  which  was  read  on  a  commemora- 
tive tablet  that  he  dedicated,  ran  thus : — '  Themistocles  of 
the  Phrearian  tribe  was  Choragus,  Phrynichus  was  Master 
(i.  e.  the  teacher  of  the  chorus  or  poet),  Adeimantus  was 
Arehon.' 

The  name  of  Phrynichus  dates  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
the  drama,  particularly  of  tragedy,  as  standing  between 
Aeschylus,  his  immediate  successor  and  younger  contem- 
porary, and  Thespis,  contemporary  of  Solon. 


230  II I  STORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

It  is  the  peculiar  glory  of  Athens  to  have  originated  and 
perfected  tragedy,  though  not  the  'drama  generally,  for 
comedy  had  already  taken  birth  elsewhere, — taken  very  highly 
developed  form  in  Sicily  certainly,  if  not  previously  at 
Megara. 

The  essential  characteristic  of  the  drama  may  be  said  to 
be  the  representation  of  human  action  by  impersonations, 
by  assumed  characters.  In  this  barest  sense  it  may  be 
recognised  as  independent  of  spoken  language;  inasmuch 
as  mere  dumb  show  of  even  an  individual,  not  to  say  of 
several  conjointly,  suffices  to  tell  a  very  complicated  story. 
Whether  as  mimicry  of  individuals  or  general  pantomime, 
impersonation  of  this  kind  has  been  in  vogue  everywhere 
and  always,  and  has  sometimes  been  raised  by  men  of 
peculiarly  apt  endowments  to  the  dignity  of  an  art.  In 
its  purest  form  it  is  independent  even  of  mimicry  of  costume. 
Such  an  exhibition  is  then  capable  of  being  enhanced  by 
music;  predominance  as  between  music  and  acting  being 
variously  adjusted,  accordingly  as  music  is  accompaniment  to 
acting  or  acting  to  music.  In  either  case,  whether  as  telling 
a  story  or  merely  expressing  a  train  of  sentiment,  there  is 
intervention  of  the  dramatic  principle. 

A  further  modification  arrives,  and  it  would  seem  a  demand 
for  still  more  distinct  acting,  in  such  a  performance  as  we 
read  of  in  the  Odyssey,  where  the  bard  sings  the  adventure 
of  Mars  and  Venus,  including  the  dialogue  of  Hermes  and 
Apollo,  Poseidon  and  Vulcan,  and  is  accompanied  by  the 
dancing  of  a  chorus  of  youths.  In  other  instances  a  pair 
of  performers,  gesticulators  apparently  rather  than  dancers, 
are  associated  with  a  chorus  and  the  singing  and  playing 
1  bard.  In  such  exhibitions  the  dancing,  as  a  visible  ex- 
pression of  general  sentiment,  seems  to  have  had  the  same 
relation  to  more  definite  pantomime,  as  the  accompaniment 

1  Hymn.  Apoll.  Pyth.  15;  Iliad,  xviii.  590. 


xvn.]    ORIGIN  AND  INFANCY  OF  THE  DRAMA.       231 

of  pipe  or  lyre  to  the  audible  words.  The  genius  and  the 
passion  for  expressive  gesture  manifestly  conduct  to  the 
completest  possible  development  in  dramatic  impersonation. 
Hellenic  comedy  and  tragedy  proper  are  accordingly  both 
traced  by  Aristotle — with  whose  amount  of  knowledge  we 
may  be  content — to  developments  from  choral  celebrations 
of  Dionysus ;  tragedy  from  the  enthusiastic  dithyramb,  and 
comedy  from  the  phallic  extravagances,  such  as  in  his  time 
were  still  in  vogue  in  many  cities  in  their  rudest  naturalistic 
form.  Each  form  of  the  drama  seems  to  have  advanced  with 
considerable  independence  of  the  other,  and  even  severally 
at  several  centres,  though  it  is  impossible  not  to  infer  from 
the  great  start  which  was  taken  so  early  by  comedy  in  Sicily 
that  her  more  dignified  sister  at  Athens  might  well  have 
some  considerable  obligations  to  own  to. 

When  history  first  took  note  of  comedy  it  was  already 
familiar  with  the  use  of  masks,  of  speeches,  of  words  spoken 
not  sung,  and  of  plurality  of  actors,  by  whom  introduced 
was  not  known;  nor  were  many  names  of  dramatists  on 

1  record.     It  was  Epicharmus  however  and  Phormis  in  Sicily 
who  first  advanced  beyond  simple  dialogue  or  insignificant 
incidents,    and    dramatised    fables    ( =  stories)  —  and    '  from 
Sicily   therefore    this    first    came.'      Epicharmus    was    from 
Megara,   Phormis  from  Arcadia,  and   it  was  admitted  that 
comedy  had  its  primitive  commencement  among  the  ruder, 
the    rustic   and    unceremonious    Dorian    populations,    whose 
capacity  for  humour  is  recorded  and  exemplified  for  us  in 
Theocritus.     But  comedy  at  this  Sicilian  epoch  is  drama  with 
all  apparatus  and  capabilities  full  blown;    Phormis  attended 
to  the  draping  both  of  his  actors  and  of  the  stage,  and  so  it 
appears   certain   that    the    plays   of   Epicharmus,    to    which 

2  Plautus  owed  obligations,  had  more  resemblance,  as  plays  of 
general  character  and  with  proper  plots,  to  the  new  comedy 

1  Aristot.  Poet.  a  Hor.  Epist.  ii.  I.  58. 


232  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  Athens  than  to  the  old.  An  attempt  of  Crates  as  late  as 
450  B.C.  to  establish  comedy  of  general  character  at  Athens 
seems  even  then  to  have  been  premature,  and  could  not 
compete  with  the  stimulant  personalities  of  Aristophanes 
and  Cratinus. 

Epicharmus  was  still  writing  in  477  B.C.,  but  apparently 
towards  the  end  of  a  very  long  life ;  and  at  this  time 
Phrynichus  was  exhibiting  what  is  most  authentically  recorded 
as  a  very  early  form  of  tragedy,  a  form  which  is  indeed 
characteristic  still  of  a  play  of  Aeschylus — the  Persae — 
represented  four  years  later. 

Every  manifestation  of  religion,  however  festive  its  general 
character  may  be,  has  necessarily  a  serious — a  solemn  side ; 
and  there  are  abundant  proofs  of  this  in  the  Dionysiac — 
elsewhere  also,  as  for  instance  at  'Argos,  but  especially  in 
Attica,  where  all  religious  sentiments  were  peculiar  in  in- 
tensity. The  god  who  became  associated,  and  not  on  inferior 
terms,  with  Apollo  at  Delphi,  was  an  assessor  no  less  with 
the  awful  goddesses  of  Eleusis,  and  shared  with  them  in  the 
respect  which  is  ever  inspired  by  concern  with  the  gravest 
responsibilities  of  another  world — of  a  future  2life.  It  was 
therefore  quite  as  natural  and  spontaneous  a  process  for  the 
severest  form  of  dramatic  poetry  to  be  engrafted  on  the 
dithyramb  of  the  god,  as  for  the  most  cheerful,  the  most 
extravagantly  vivacious  on  the  turbulent  excitement  of  his 
coarser  celebrations. 

To  Thespis  in  the  time  of  Solon  was  ascribed  the  relief 
of  the  choral  performers  by  introduction  of  recited  speeches, 
but  as  yet  with  no  mention  of  dialogue.  For  anything  that 
appears,  the  chorus  was  uniformly  composed  of  representatives 
of  Satyrs,  the  mythical  train  of  Dionysus,  a  modification 
superinduced  on  the  ancient  dithyramb  by  Arion  at  Corinth, 
and  already  involving  the  principle  of  impersonation.  How 

1  P»UB.  ii.  37.  5.  *  Herod,  ii.  123. 


xvn.]          THESPIS,  EPICHARMUS,  PHORMIS.  233 

rapidly  the  same  principle  extended  to  the  exarchon,  the 
leader  of  the  chorus,  to  the  variation  of  the  characters  that 
he  might  assume,  to  the  substitution  or  addition  of  other 
characters  besides  Satyrs  for  the  chorus,  it  may  be  to  the 
incorporation  of  an  independently  developed  system  at  once, 
these  are  matters  unrecorded;  when  the  door  was  once 
opened  for  innovation,  the  emulative  spirit  of  gifted  imagi- 
nations at  a  period  of  high  intellectual  excitement  did  not 
allow  it  to  prematurely  close. 

To  Aeschylus  Aristotle  ascribes  the  introduction,  into 
tragedy  at  least, — if  we  may  not  with  Epicharmus  in  mind 
say  into  the  drama, — of  a  second  actor,  an  innovation 
equivalent  to  the  commencement  of  dialogue,  and  then  still 
further  the  curtailment  of  the  choral  sections  of  the  piece 
in  favour  of  extended  dialogue ;  and  it  may  be  asked,  what 
then  remains  intermediately  for  Phrynichus?  But  there 
was  abundant  opportunity  for  variety  of  artistic  elaboration 
and  novelty,  even  within  the  limits  of  composition  restricted 
to  lyrical  chorus  and  narrative  speeches.  It  is  to  the  value 
which  these  latter  now  attained  that  we  must  ascribe  the 
affection  with  which  they  were  retained  in  later  Greek 
tragedy,  whether  delivered  by  messengers  or  in  the  prologues 
that  Euripides  peculiarly  affects,  but  that  were  not  rejected 
by  l  Aeschylus  or  2  Sophocles.  In  these  we  have  relics,  tra- 
ditions, of  the  time  when  such  narrative  speeches,  an  epic 
element  in  fact,  were  the  sole  interruptions  or  reliefs  of 
the  choruses,  but  their  reduction  to  such  an  extent  may 
have  been  but  gradual.  So  we  cannot  say  by  whom  it  was 
effected,  nor  whether  it  was  by  one  of  the  many  gradual 
transitions,  to  which  Aristotle  alludes  as  unrecorded,  or  by-  a 
bold  stroke,  that  the  chorus  of  Satyrs  was  extruded  from  inter- 
course with  the  more  severe  action,  and  relegated — as  from 
tradition  of  hereditary  claim  to  all  it  could  not  be  denied  a 

1  Eumenides.  2  Trachiniae. 


234  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

residue — to  a  separate  and  final  satyric  entrance  or  play. 
Still  less  can  we  certify  that  the  system  of  trilogic  and 
tetralogic  combinations  of  dramas  may  not  have  had  its 
origin  long  before  the  first  recorded  example  that  comprised 
the  Persae  of  Aeschylus. 

It  is  characteristic  of  early  art  to  rely  on  repetitions  in  the 
very  simplest  form  as  at  once  the  great  resource  of  variety  and 
composition ;  to  proceed  from  more  absolute  parallels  to  such 
contrasts  of  type  and  antetype  as  Gothic  art  delights  in,  the 
coupled  subjects  of  the  Old  Testament  and  New,  of  sacred  and 
profane,  and  so  to  climb  by  degrees  towards  truly  aesthetic 
principles  of  composition. 

From  the  scattered  notices  that  are  obtainable  of  Phryni- 
chus  we  must  conclude  that  his  merits  were  still  rather 
distinctly  poetical  than  specifically  dramatic.  A  caviller  at 
Aeschylus  in  Aristophanes — at  Aeschylus  who  combined  both 
qualifications — ascribes  the  effect  which  he  produced  to  his 
luck  in  having  to  take  over  the  simple-minded  auditors  of 
Phrynichus,  who  were  easily  astonished.  But  the  poetical 
merit  of  Phrynichus,  in  addition  to  his  very  considerable 
1  originality,  must  have  been  very  great,  and  the  melodious- 
ness of  his  versification  is  particularly  celebrated.  The  careers, 
of  Phrynichus  and  of  Aeschylus  overlap,  and  each  may  have 
borrowed  from  the  other, — the  elder  from  the  younger  quite 
as  probably  as  the  younger  from  the  elder  of  natural 
necessity.  Phrynichus  was  said  to  have  first  brought  female 
characters  on  the  stage,  and  this  was  more  likely  to  occur 
after  the  innovation  of  Aeschylus  respecting  dialogue  than 
before  it. 

The  acted  drama  ever  involves  the  union  of  several  arts, 
or  draws  on  the  resources  of  several;  it  may  even  be  a 
concentration  of  all,  and  as  it  would  appear,  should  then 
most  nearly  achieve  its  proper  triumph,  when  it  is  most 

1  Aristoph.  Ran.  910,  1299;  Av.  749;  Vetp.  220. 


xvii.]       THE  DRAMA,  TRAGIC  AND  SATYRIC.          235 

comprehensive  and  when  the  various  elements  that  it  unites 
are  united  to  the  best  effect,  are  so  subordinated  as  to  give 
best  prominence  to  the  worthiest.  Every  variety  of  poetry 
may  here  find  place — the  epic,  the  lyrical,  the  melic ;  every 
variety  of  rhetoric — persuasive,  declamatory,  argumentative ; 
chorus  and  song  bring  in  music ;  and  scenery,  costume,  group- 
ing, mien,  and  gesture  are  effective  on  the  same  conditions  as 
admit  architecture,  painting,  sculpture.  It  is  perfectly  legi- 
timate for  an  artist  who  is  to  be  justified  by  his  results,  to 
exclude  from  his  accompaniments  of  impersonation  either  one 
or  more  of  the  arts,  to  dispense  with  music,  with  scenery, 
with  lyric  or  with  narrative  poetry ;  and  no  less  so  for  him  to 
determine,  from  considerations  of  his  capacity  and  his  theme, 
to  which  art  and  to  which  class  of  its  resources  he  will 
assign  the  predominance.  But  the  best  attaches  to  the  best. 
The  aim  to  give  the  fullest  expression  fto  high  actions  and 
high  passions'  conducted  the  Attic  tragedian  to,  not  exclude, 
but  subordinate,  the  lyrical  and  musical  elements  of  his 
composition,  as  absolutely  as  he  retained  the  musical  and 
dancing  accompaniments  in  subjection  to  the  lyric  words 
and  their  intelligible  effect;  as  absolutely  as  he  repressed 
any  tendency  of  scenic  pomp  and  surprise  of  machinery  to 
distract  attention  from  the  main  purport  of  the  play. 

In  what  manner  another  class  of  combinations  were  dealt 
with  it  is  less  easy  to  determine.  The  drama  has  for  its 
general  subject  the  entire  range  of  human  feelings,  every 
phase  in  every  age  and  class,  of  hope  and  fear,  of  love  and 
hatred,  of  admiration  or  amusement ;  and  there  is  no  feeling, 
however  dignified,  that  has  not  its  relations  by  over-tension 
or  by  lapse  to  the  mean  or  the  ridiculous,  and  none  so 
irretrievably  comic  that  may  not  glide  into  the  serious  and 
severe  by  very  moderate  variation  of  a  circumstance.  The  very 
grandest  tone  of  sentiment  and  thought  can  therefore  scarcely 
receive  its  full  illustration  unless  its  divergences  and  limits 
are  defined  by  indication  at  least  of  its  controlling  contrasts. 


236  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

It  is  as  open  to  the  poet  to  make  one  tone  or  another  pre- 
dominant, as  to  make  election  among  the  arts  that  are  to 
be  its  vehicle ;  and  thus  arises  the  grand  distinction  between 
tragedy  and  comedy,  when  most  unchallengeable ;  and  thus 
the  various  graduations  of  either,  till  in  certain  phases  and 
proportions  they  meet  and  coalesce.  But  Socrates  assumed, 
as  a  corollary  of  one  of  his  most  favourite  general  principles — 
that  perfect  apprehension  of  one  thing  implied  as  perfect  of 
its  opposite — that  the  best  appreciation  of  tragic  and  of  comic 
effect  must  necessarily  go  together ;  and  so  the  perfect 
realisation  of  tragic  effect  seems  to  require  concurrent 
presentation  of  at  least  an  adumbration  of  its  comic  phase. 
Abundant  illustration  of  this  principle  may  be. gathered  from 
the  plays  of  Shakespear ;  we  need  go  no  further  than  the 
clownish  conundrums  of  the  gravedigger,  which  are  introduc- 
tory to  the  over-curious  considerings,  as  they  seem  to  Horatio, 
of  Prince  Hamlet  over  the  skull.  How  is  this  requirement 
satisfied,  how  was  it  satisfied,  in  the  Attic  drama  ?  Apparently 
by  the  medium  of  the  satyric  drama — the  drama  with  a- 
chorus  of  Satyrs — which  was  in  the  time  of  Aeschylus,  and 
presumably  of  Phrynichus,  the  complement  of  a  tragic 
representation.  More  we  can  scarcely  say ;  we  have  but 
one  satyric  play,  and  of  that  we  know  not  the  tragic 
accompaniments ;  we  have  the  title  of  another  and  one  of 
the  three  tragedies — the  Persae — that  it  followed,  to  which, 
as  we  shall  see,  we  can  attach  its  subject  as  having  a  certain 
pertinence,  but  beyond  the  confirmation  of  a  general  pre- 
sumption we  can  deduce  nothing  more. 

The  Persae  of  Aeschylus  is  the  only  later  example  even 
on  record  of  tragic  treatment  of  a  contemporary  subject, 
and  was  said  to  be  copied  in  a  degree  from  the  Phoenissae 
(the  Phoenician  women)  of  Phrynichus.  The  Phoenissae  was 
the  second  such  attempt  of  Phrynichus ;  a  previous,  and 
indeed  the  only  other  on  record  at  all,  was  on  a  theme  which 
was  as  painful  for  the  Athenians  as  his  later  was  exultant — 


xvii.]  PHRYNICHUS  AND  AESCHYLUS.  237 

the  Capture  of  Miletus  by  the  Persians,  the  catastrophe  of  Ionia 
(B.C.  49.4).  So  profound  was  the  sympathy  of  the  Athenians 
at  that  wreck  of  the  most  glorious  of  their  colonies — 
manifested  in  other  ways  frequently — that  when  Phrynichus 
brought  it  before  them  on  the  stage,  though  doubtless  with 
no  lack  of  sympathy,  the  whole  theatre  burst  into  a  passion 
of  tears,  and  the  people  resented  the  public  exhibition  of 
afflictions  which  they  counted  as  their  own  by  inflicting  upon 
the  poet  a  fine  of  TOOO  drachmas. 

The  title  of  his  later  play  is  no  doubt  true  indication  that 
the  chorus  consisted  of  Phoenician  girls  or  women.  We 
learn  from  the  argument  of  the  Persae,  which  was  said  by 
the  same  authority — Glaucus — to  be  in  some  degree  an 
imitation  of  it,  that  the  scene  opened  by  entrance  of  a 
eunuch  to  arrange  the  seats  for  the  royal  councillors;  for 
such  an  assembly  of  dignities  in  due  order  therefore,  as  is 
described  by  Herodotus  on  the  occasion  of  a  council  of 
1  Xerxes,  and  as  we  see  depicted  around  Darius  on  the 
Neapolitan  vase, — a  recognised  display  of  Persian  state.  The 
eunuch  prologised  by  relating  the  defeat  of  Salamis — a 
precipitate  discovery  that  is  more  artfully  reserved  by 
Aeschylus.  The  poet  would  thus  appear  to  have  written 
the  play,  upon  a  flattering  theme,  in  compensation  of  his 
previous  offence,  no  less  than  as  a  gratification,  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  victor  of  Salamis — his  choragus. 

The  acceptance  of  such  personal  glorification  was  not 
without  its  dangers  at  Athens,  but  dangers  that  Tliemistocles 
seems  to  have  made  a  point  of  carelessly  provoking ;  possibly 
from  simple  want  of  self-control  in  this  direction,  possibly,  on 
the  other  hand,  from  a  definite  notion  that  by  persistent 
provocation  of  enviousness  of  a  somewhat  mean  type  he 
could  shame  it  to  silence  or  blunt  its  faculty  of  offence. 

Earlier  in  time,  and  by  the  elder  and  earlier  poet,   the 

1    Herod,  viii.  67. 


238  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

Phoenissae  of  Phrynichus  may  be  certainly  assumed  as 
characterised  by  more  than  the  archaism  that  we  usually 
assume  as  recognisable  in  the  Persae.  Whatever  innovations 
are  implied  by  regular  dialogue,  feminine  interlocutor,  a 
chorus  of  senators,  extensive  adoption  of  the  tragic  senarian, 
are  found  in  the  Persae ;  but  along  with  these,  as  archaic 
residues,  are  not  unfrequent  adoption,  for  speeches,  of  the 
tetrameter  that  Aristotle  tells  us  was  relinquished  when  a 
measure  fitted  for  dancing  was  of  less  consequence  than 
one  which,  like  the  trimeter,  had  a  natural  harmony  with 
the  measure  of  discourse ;  general  excess  of  proportion  of 
lyrical  element,  its  encroachment  on  or  rather  retention  of 
place  where  it  is  afterwards  missed,  as  in  the  long  prologue, 
itself  an  archaism  ;  and  the  protraction,  though  not  unre- 
ieved  by  interruptions,  of  the  messenger's  narrative. 

Phrynichus  therefore  is  an  apt  representative  of  the  drama 
at  the  epoch  of  this  Olympiad,  as  advanced  to  the  formal 
condition  which  is  precisely  anterior  to  that  last  effort  of 
genius  which  carries  it  to  perfection,  a  condition  which  it 
shares  with  several  other  arts. 


CHAPTER    XVIIL 

ARCHITECTURE   AND    SCULPTURE    IN    THE   AGE   OF 
THEMISTOCLES. 

A  NOTICE  is  preserved  by  1Vitruvius,  that  a  proper  theatre 
was  first  constructed  at  Athens  by  Agatharcus,  who  described 
it  in  a  treatise.  From  2  Suidas  we  learn  that  it  was  erected  in 
place  of  a  wooden  structure  that  gave  way  with  the  spectators 
on  an  occasion  when  Aeschylus  was  exhibiting  in  competition 
with  Pratinas,  the  reputed  inventor  of  the  satyric  drama,  as 
early  as  the  joth  Olympiad  (499  B.  c.).  In  the  absence  of 
closer  information,  we  are  left  to  entertain  the  high  proba- 
bility that  here  at  Athens,  and  in  this  way  was  originated  that 
type  of  the  Greek  uncovered  theatre  which  was  repeated  with 
only  secondary  variations  all  over  Hellenic  ground — of  vast 
capacity  usually,  and,  in  Asia  Minor  especially,  on  colossal 
scale.  The  general  characteristics  that  agree  with  such  an 
origin  are,  the  solidity  that  was  secured  by  basing  the  con- 
centric lines  of  seats,  as  they  rose  one  behind  the  other,  imme- 
diately on  the  hollowed  slope  of,  if  possible,  a  rocky  hill-side ; 
and  then  the  liberal  extent  which  was  allowed  for  the  orchestra, 
the  dancing-place  of  the  chorus,  a  level  semicircular  space 
embraced  by  the  arc  of  the  lowest  range  of  seats.  The  con- 
cession of  so  large  and  central  a  position  is  in  accordance  with 

1  Praefat.  7.  a  a.  v.  Aeschylus. 


240  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

the  relative  importance  of  the  chorus  in  the  earlier  drama 
as  compared  with  the  proper  dialogue,  and  still  more  with 
the  traditional  regard  for  its  performance  as  a  celebration  in 
honour  of  the  god — of  Dionysus,  to  whom  the  entire  structure 
and  all  its  purposes  were  sacred.  At  the  same  time,  although 
the  area  reserved  for  the  chorus  has  its  name  from  dancing,  it 
is  not  the  less  certain  that  in  the  execution  to  music  of  the 
beautiful  and  elaborately-constructed  choruses  of  the  drama- 
tists, as  of  the  Odes  of  Pindar,  the  dancing  was  but  a  secondary 
adjunct,  that,  so  far  from  superseding  or  even  interfering  with 
the  interest  and  distinctness  of  the  poetry,  was  only  valued 
for  heightening  its  effect. 

The  long  transverse  slip  of  elevated  stage  for  the  dialogue 
of  the  actors  was  more  remote,  on  the  chord  of  the  semi- 
circle ;  the  difficulty  of  giving  effect  to  the  voice  in  theatres 
so  large  and  under  the  open  sky,  for  due  delivery  of  speeches 
which  depended  for  interest  and  charm  on  refined  poetical 
expression,  was  resolved  with  as  much  ingenuity  as  daring. 
Besides  certain  acoustical  adjustments  that  are  still  but  im- 
perfectly understood,  but  were  evidently  directed  less  to 
countervailing  echoes  than  enhancing  resonance,  a  contrivance 
was  employed  for  adding  loudness  to  the  issuing  voice.  The" 
deformity  which  this  involved  was  relieved  by,  and  perhaps 
originally  suggested,  the  adoption  of  a  mask  that  completely 
covered  both  face  and  head.  Threatened  disproportion  was 
again  evaded  by  what  was  considered  only  a  further  pro- 
priety, the  artificial  exaggeration  of  the  entire  height  and 
bulk  of  the  actors,  sometimes  representatives  of  gods,  or  in 
any  case  of  heroes  who,  by  the  convention  of  ancient  art, 
which  was  allowed  on  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  as  on  the 
shield  of  1  Achilles,  ever  claimed  superior  magnitude.  There 
was  thus  a  readily  accepted  contrast  between  the  personages 
on  the  bema,  and  the  natural  forms  and  proportions  of  the 

1  II.  xviii.  519. 


xvm.]       ARCHITECTURE  AND  THE  DRAMA.  241 

chorus,  which  in  the  days  of  purer  dramatic  art  all  but  in- 
variably represented  the  weaker  and  vacillating,  in  fact,  the 
generally  meaner  minds  of  ordinary  mortals.  The  thick- 
soled  cothurnus,  the  majestic  costumes,  and  the  masks  were 
inventions  of  Aeschylus,  and  are  in  striking  harmony  with  his 
style,  with  the  boldness  of  his  metaphors,  the  unhesitating 
originality  of  his  expressions ;  and  we  need  not  doubt  were  on 
the  whole  equally  justified,  equally  admirable  in  result,  though 
in  like  manner  not  seldom  startling,  even  sometimes  to  the 
extent  of  a  shock.  The  number  and  variety  of  characteristic 
masks  that  were  required  by  such  a  fertile  dramatist  as 
Aeschylus  alone,  must  have  given  a  marvellous  stimulus  to 
inventive  design,  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  his 
personal  influence  and  suggestions  may  not  have  contributed 
to  the  decision  of  those  types  of  divine  and  heroic  physiog- 
nomy that  were  elaborated  by  the  sculptors.  His  own  de- 
scription of  the  aspect  of  his  Furies  evinces  how  forcibly 
characteristic  were  the  types  that  he  accepted. 

As  regards  the  temple  architecture  of  the  Greeks,  we  have 
the  names  of  four  architects  of  Athens  who  were  employed  on 
the  great  Olympieium  under  Peisistratus, — names  only,  not  a 
fragment  of  their  work,  as  little  of  the  work  of  Rhoecus  in  the 
vast  Heraeum  of  Samos,  or  of  the  Corinthian  Spintharus  at 
Delphi.  But  for  our  immediate  epoch  we  happily  possess  re- 
mains which  when  closely  examined  discover  how  much  careful 
theoretical  study  was  devoted  to  the  original  design,  and  even 
throw  back  light  upon  certain  more  archaic  fragments  of  un- 
assignable date.  The  temple  that  was  measured  and  published 
with  great  completeness  by  Mr.  Cockerell,  under  the  title  of 
The  Temple  of  Jupiter  Panhellenius  at  Aegina,  illustrates  the 
architecture  of  this  period  and  its  sculpture  also,  and  fur- 
nishes an  intermediate  example  between  some  scanty  remains 
of  an  earlier  Parthenon  and  a  temple  at  Corinth,  and  the 
perfected  Doric  temples  of  the  age  of  Pericles. 

The  Doric  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  common  style  of 

R 


242  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Hellenic  architecture  at  the  date  when  building  first  attained 
with  the  Hellenes  to  the  dignity  of  a  style,  a  point  that  is 
found  already  attained  in  no  imperfect  sense  even  in  the  very 
earliest  examples  of  which  fragments  are  preserved.  The  first 
that  we  possess  betray  most  clearly  in  their  details  derivation 
from  timber  originals,  but  not  more  distinctly  and  scarcely 
more  crudely  than  the  latest ;  and  the  moderateness  of  subse- 
quent change  in  this  respect  warns  us  how  remote  the  earlier 
may  be  from  the  epoch  of  original  adaptation.  For  all  their 
archaism,  they  exhibit  the  style  complete  in  its  essential 
members,  and  with  far  more  than  the  rudiments  of  its  cha- 
racteristic beauty ;  most  important  fact  of  all,  they  betray  a 
consciousness  of  the  principles  on  which  character  and  ex- 
pression in  architecture  are  dependent. 

The  obligations  of  Doric  to  Egyptian  architecture  have  been 
recognised  with  a  circumstantiality  that  is  not  easily  gain- 
said, in  the  details  which  offer  for  comparison  in  the  so-called 
Proto-Donc  of  Beni-Hassan  and  Philae  ;  among  them  the  most 
plausible,  for  they  are  in  truth  too  specific  to  be  ascribed  to 
common  suggestion  of  natural  fitness,  are  the  abacus,  echinus, 
and  rudimentary  annulets  of  the  capital  of  the  column,  and 
the  facetted  shaft  that  prepares  for  the  all-important  flutes. 
But  the  most  important  lessons  that  the  Greek  might  have 
learnt  and  probably  did  learn  among  the  primeval  monuments 
of  Egypt,  were  the  capabilities  of  beauty  that  reside  in  the 
column  as  a  structural  member,  and  in  extended  colonnades, — 
in  contrasts  of  columns  of  subordinated  dimensions  and  pro- 
portions, and  of  the  cylindrical  column  with  rectangular  pier 
or  anta, — the  value  of  equalities  of  spacing  and  of  symmetry  in 
elevation, — the  dignity  of  close  and  massive  proportions  and  of 
consistent  adherence  to  trabeative  construction  in  the  span  of 
voids  by  the  horizontal  beam.  To  Egypt,  with  all  its  barbaric 
limitations  and  sophistications  and  affection  for  extravagant 
mass  that  did  but  dwarf  the  artist,  must  still  be  allowed  the 
achievement  both  in  sculpture  and  architecture  of  a  very  high 


xviii.]    EGYPTIAN  AND  DORIC  ARCHITECTURE.     243 

grade  of  dignity  and  expression,  which  merits  recognition  in 
no  slight  degree  as  a  grand  style,  and  that  at  a  time  which 
relatively  to  Greek  art — carry  it  back  as  far  as  we  reasonably 
may — was  remote  antiquity  indeed. 

But  whatever  the  Greek  borrowed  was  first  selected  as  the 
most  suitable,  and  then  very  speedily  became  his  own  by 
a  process  equivalent  to  the  changes  of  transmuting  nature. 
It  was  by  his  steady  reliance  on  nature  and  recurrence  to 
nature  that  he  had  shaken  himself  free  from  many  a  sophistica- 
tion that  clung  to  him  for  a  certain  time  from  earlier  forms 
of  Aryan  language  or  mythology;  at  the  utmost  he  retained 
them  as  wild  stocks  on  which  to  graft  expression  and  poetry 
of  a  perfection  that  goes  far  to  reduce  enquiry  respecting  their 
ulterior  origin  to  little  more  than  vulgar  antiquarianism.  The 
superseded  forms  may  leave  a  certain  impress,  but  it  is  as 
vestiges  of  forms  that  have  departed  ;  adopted  forms  may  still 
upon  scrutiny  betray  their  prototype,  but  ever  concurrently 
with  the  final  renunciation  of  allegiance  to  such  an  origin. 
So  the  stone  architecture  of  the  Greeks,  while  manifestly 
derived  in  numerous  details  from  models  constructed  in 
timber,  as  manifestly  does  not  minutely  mimic,  does  not 
studiously  imitate  them,  and  in  all  most  important  points 
adjusts  itself  to  new  conditions.  The  substitution  of  stone 
for  timber  had  early  enforced  contracted  bearings  between 
open  supports,  the  span  from  column  to  column  being  con- 
trolled by  available  scantling  of  materials ;  then  the  composi- 
tion, which  so  was  of  necessity  closed  up,  betrayed  of  itself  an 
elementary  principle  of  dignity  that  the  sensibility  of  the 
Greek  was  quick  to  recognise  and  eager  and  able  to  develope. 
It  was  here  that  his  imagination  was  most  affected  by  the 
exclusively  stone  architecture  of  Egypt ;  but  out  of  the 
various  types  presented  to  him  he  selected  and  made  chief 
use  of  that  which  harmonised  best  with  past  associations 
from  constructions  that  were  already  in  possession  of  his 
sympathies. 

K  2 


244  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

The  climatic  difference  of  a  stormy  as  contrasted  with  a 
rainless  region  was  recognised  and  allowed  prerogative  in- 
fluence over  mouldings  and  profiles  throughout ;  responsively 
to  this  consideration,  a  sloping  roof,  adapted  to  weather- 
fend  the  interior,  now  descended  on  the  cornice ;  and  to  the 
cornice  was  given  a  bolder  horizontal  projection  that  sheltered 
the  exterior  also,  and  delivered  rainfall  clear  of  the  members 
below.  Even  to  the  crowning  capital  of  the  column,  in 
deference  to  the  same  idea,  was  assigned  a  spread  that  is  quite 
independent  of  reference  to  the  bearing  and  breadth  of  the 
architrave,  the  beam  which  it  carried ;  but  is  sympathetic 
with  the  expression  of  ample  cover  to  the  shaft  and  foot 
below. 

A  solid  and  spreading  basement,  the  line  of  regularly  inter- 
spaced columns,  the  bracing  architrave  and  covering  and 
repeated  triglyphs  of  the  bonding  frieze,  completed  the  ele- 
ments of  the  composition,  and  gave  occasions  for  telling- 
contrasts  of  void  and  solid,  of  vertical  and  horizontal,  of  open 
and  enclosed.  But  it  was  by  his  mastery  of  the  harmonising 
influence  of  consistent  and  characteristic  proportion  that  the 
Greek  attempered  these  contrasts,  and  by  blending  them  in 
unity  knew  how  to  elevate  propriety  in  purpose  and  con- 
struction to  the  charm  of  stateliness  and  beauty  in  highest 
perfection. 

The  Aeginetan  temple  is  but  small — 100  feet  by  50  on 
plan,  with  columns  of  3^-  feet  in  diameter  against  the 
5f  feet  of  the  Corinthian.  It  represents  the  distribution 
of  larger  structures  by  being  divided  in  the  interior  even 
to  inconvenience  by  colonnades  that,  upon  such  a  reduced 
scale,  obstruct  passage ;  but  it  is  in  other  respects  elaborate 
in  design  and  refined  in  execution  and  ornament,  to  a  degree 
that  certifies  it  to  be  an  example  of  the  best  advancement  of 
its  period.  As  regards  the  architecture  of  the  temple,  its 
Doric  style  is  the  same  that,  complete  in  all  members  and 
details,  and  even  in  characteristic  treatment  and  the  general 


xviii.]     EASTERN  AND  IONIC  ARCHITECTURE.        245 

proportions  of  the  whole,  had  been  already  transported  to 
Italy  and  Sicily;  it  was  there  to  be  embodied  on  colossal 
scale,  but  scarcely  to  receive  any  modifications  that,  as  com- 
pared with  the  primary  scheme,  are  beyond  the  value  of 
provincialisms.  The  architecture  of  Paestum  and  of  Agri- 
gentum,  and  other  Sicilian  cities  even  of  later  date,  has 
marked  analogy  with  Aeginetan  Doric  in  the  specimen  before 
us,  and  separated  too  early  from  the  parent  stock  to  parti- 
cipate in  the  exactness  of  refinement  that  still  remained  to 
be  conferred  by  Attic  genius. 

In  almost  all  its  forms  at  all  times  Doric  architecture  is 
distinguished  for  breadth,  boldness,  simplicity,  majesty,  and 
its  merits  in  these  respects  are  already  pronounced  in  the 
age  of  Themistocles  with  considerable  dignity;  but  archaism 
even  at  its  best  never  quite  compasses  perfect  consistency,  and 
purity  of  style  awaits  the  sensitiveness  of  a  more  refined  and 
fully  practised  age.  Severity  is  usually  the  characteristic  of 
archaic  art,  and  the  remains  of  the  Doric  temple  at  Corinth, 
of  an  earlier  age  than  the  Aeginetan,  are  in  respect  of  some 
forms  more  heavy,  it  may  be  said  more  majestic ;  but  in  the 
profile  of  the  capital  they  demand  still  more  stringently  that 
correction  of  a  common  weakness  which  was  afterwards  to  be 
administered  by  the  Athenian. 

Ionic  architecture,  or  rather  the  Ionic  style  of  Greek  archi- 
tecture, can  scarcely  be  traced  quite  up  to  the  age  of  Themis- 
tocles, but  must  have  been  already  in  progress  of  develope- 
ment,  and  may  be  referred  to  in  anticipation  as  illustrating 
by  contrast  the  developement  to  which  it  supervened.  It 
stands  in  the  same  relation  to  Persia,  from  whence  it  derived 
many  suggestions  for  treatment  of  column  in  capital  and 
base,  and  to  Assyria  for  ornamental  details,  that  the  Doric 
style  occupies  to  Egypt.  Again,  the  Greek  gave  more  than 
he  appropriated.  Egyptian  architecture  was  Dorised  by 
fusion  with  inventions  drawn  from  systematic  timber  con- 
struction ;  and  then  this  developed  Doric  supplied  the  funda- 


246  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

mental  forms  which  received  enrichments  of  Eastern  origin, 
but  which  it  remained  for  Hellenic  genius  to  render  refined, 
and  to  distribute  with  unimpeachable  propriety  and  grace. 

In  leading  divisions  and  even  certain  subdivisions  of  stylo- 
bate,  column,  entablature,  pediment,  the  Ionic  style  in  the 
majority  of  instances  adheres  accurately  to  the  lines  and  pre- 
cedents of  the  Doric.  The  main  differences  are  that  the 
column  as  Ionic  assumes  for  the  first  time  a  proper  moulded 
base  and  interpolates  the  peculiar  Eastern  form  of  volutes 
below  the  abacus  of  the  capital,  and  that  the  frieze  becomes 
continuous  by  dispensing  with  the  intermittent  series  of  tri- 
glyphs.  What  are  really  more  important  distinctions  are 
found  in  the  uniform  adoption  of  slenderer  proportions,  in 
harmony  with  the  lightness  of  decoration,  though  still  regu- 
lated on  the  same  general  principles,  and  above  all  in  the 
characteristic  profile  of  the  order. 

Pass  the  eye  down  the  Ionic  profile  and  it  will  be  observed 
that  every  angle  is  tempered  by  an  adjacent  curved  moulding 
precisely  at  the  points — as  in  architrave-band  and  abacus,  and 
at  meeting  of  cornice  and  bed-moulding,  of  shaft  and  stylobate 
— where  the  angularity  of  the  Doric  is  most  unqualified  ;  and 
curves  of  contrary  flexure  are  admitted  as  frankly  as  the  more 
simple.  In  the  Doric  profile,  the  imperceptible  entasis  of  the 
column  apart,  it  is  only  in  the  cymatium  or  gutter-rim  of  the 
pediment,  in  the  echinus  or  the  bowl-like  member  of  the  capital 
and  the  mere  lip  of  a  drip-moulding  that  curvature  is  ad- 
mitted at  all ;  all  other  projections  are  bounded  by  right  lines 
at  right  angles,  or  at  angles  very  acute  or  very  obtuse.  The 
cymatium  at  Aegina  is  a  curve  of  contrary  flexure,  but  even 
this  indulgence  was  destined  to  be  corrected  in  the  Parthenon, 
for  a  simple  curve  stopped  by  a  right  line  ;  and  the  curve  of 
the  echinus  of  the  capital  was  also  to  be  set  there  more 
severely  upright  and  returned  upon  the  abacus  with  greater 
approximation  to  the  vertical  than  in  the  Aeginetan  and  in 
the  still  moro  abnormal  Corinthian  example.  So  the  sinking 


xviii.]    PROPORTION  IN  GREEK  ARCHITECTURE.     247 

of  the  Aeginetan  flute  as  a  segment  of  a  circle  was  afterwards 
rendered  more  severe  by  the  substitution  of  the  flatter  ellipse 
that  gives  a  sharper  and  steeper  arris.  At  Aegina  already, 
the  tendency  to  contrary  flexure  in  a  curve  as  continued 
from  the  echinus  to  the  shaft  of  the  column,  is  qualified 
by  the  deep  sinkings  and  bold  angularity  of  the  annulets 
and  necking;  but  even  here  the  Athenian  was  not  satisfied 
without  rendering  the  break  still  more  pronounced. 

As  regards  general  proportion,  not  only  is  Doric  majesty 
acknowledged  and  valuably  realised  at  Aegina,  but  it  was 
moreover  already  effected  by  studied  adjustment  of  exact 
numerical  proportion;  and  much  progress  had  been  made 
towards  discovery  of  the  appropriate  terms  and  appropriate 
directions  for  the  application  of  the  principle.  I  have  illus- 
trated this  point  in  detail  in  an  Appendix  to  Mr.  Cockerell's 
work. 

The  Doric  column,  as  compared  with  the  Ionic,  is  shorter 
relatively  to  its  diameter,  thicker  relatively  to  its  interval, 
and  consequently  lower  relatively  to  its  spacing ;  but  varies  in 
different  examples  in  a  sequence  that  tends  directly  to  Ionic 
proportion.  A  comparison  of  Doric  examples  among  them- 
selves in  the  last  respect  gives  the  following  progressive  con- 
traction of  arrangement  on  plan,  and  illustrates — this  is  not 
the  place  for  more — one  application  of  the  Greek  theory  of 
architectural  proportion  : — 

At  Corinth — Height  of  Column  =  2  Intercolumns  +  ij  diameters  of  the  column. 
At  Aegina  „  =  „  +  2  „ 

The  Theseum  at  1  , 

Athens  J        "  " 

The  Parthenon  „  =  „  +3  „' 

In  both  the  Aeginetan  and  Corinthian  Doric  columns  the 
upper  and  lower  diameters  of  the  shaft  and  that  of  the  abacus 
have  the  same  relative  proportions  of  low  numbers,  3:4:5; 
a  sequence  that  occurs  in  like  application  in  some  Attic 
examples,  but  in  others,  and  especially  the  Parthenon,  was 
superseded  by  further  refinements.  The  retention  of  like 


248  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

proportions  between  corresponding  diameters  in  columns  that 
differed  considerably  in  height  introduced  effects  of  delicate 
variety. 

Lastly,  the  architect  of  the  temple  at  Aegina  had  as  yet  no 
more  than  the  school  that  carried  on  the  art  in  the  West, 
appreciated  the  value  of  giving  preponderance  of  height  to 
the  vertical  member,  the  column,  relatively  to  the  joint 
height  of  the  horizontals — of  the  rest  of  the  fa9ade.  This 
was  a  discovery  still  reserved  for  Attica,  and  the  rational 
vindication  of  it  goes  far  into  the  principles  that  govern 
architectural  design  of  every  style  and  age  to  the  extent  that 
it  approaches  full  perfection.  It  was  at  Athens  first,  at  Athens 
chiefly,  that  the  principles  of  the  appropriate  application  of 
proportion  to  architecture  were  discovered  and  exemplified  ; 
principles  that  even  so  far  as  already  recovered  await  intel- 
ligent recognition. 

Authentic  evidence  fails  for  instituting  a  comparison  of  the 
entire  coloured  enrichment  with  that  of  the  Parthenon ;  for 
little  more  can  be  advanced  without  risk  of  controversy  than 
that  there  also  the  stringcourses  and  mouldings  that  framed  in 
the  pediment  and  frieze  were  painted  with  patterns.  At  Aegina 
there  is  more  sufficient  proof  of  the  colour  applied  to  some 
plain  broad  surfaces,  with  manifest  crudity  and  as  lingering 
traditions  from  primitive  usage  of  timber  constructions. 

The  sculpture  of  the  Aeginetan  temple  is  so  far  in  har- 
mony with  its  architecture,  that  in  hardness  of  forms  and 
expressions,  as  distinguished  from  unskilfulness  or  rudeness, 
it  retains  much  of  traditional  archaism,  together  with  very 
high  merits  that  evince  capacities  and  promise  of  advance 
to  any  height  of  excellence.  The  various  degrees  of  merit 
that  are  found  among  the  figures  of  these  compositions, 
attest  an  already  established  and  still  proceeding  improve- 
ment. We  cannot  do  them  full  justice  as  compositions,  in 
consequence  of  many  figures  being  lost  from  each,  but  for- 
tunately enough  remain  to  illustrate  the  principles  of  com- 


xvm.]        ARCHAIC  SCHOOLS  OF  SCULPTURE.  249 

position  that  were  adopted,  as  well  as  to  display  the  feeling 
that  had  been  acquired  for  truthfulness  to  beauty  in  nature 
and  technical  mastery.  The  original  marbles  are  at  Munich, 
restored  by  Thorwaldsen,  and  so  far  with  a  misdirected  in- 
genuity that  designedly  obscures  the  distinction  of  new  parts 
and  old. 

The  chief  seats  of  sculpture  in  Greece  at  this  time — and 
for  long  before,  as  for  long  afterwards — were  Aegina,  Athens, 
Argos,  Sicyon.  Each  city  may  have  had  peculiarities  of 
school,  but  their  artists  are  found  working  in  concert,  and 
it  would  seem  to  follow,  exercising  lively  reaction  in  style 
and  interchanging  instruction.  Synnoon  and  his  son  Ptoli- 
chus  of  Aegina  are  pupils  of  a  Sicyouian ;  Simon  of  Aegina 
works  together  with  Dionysius  of  l  Argos  as  Ageladas  of 
Argos  works  with  the  Sicyonians  Canachus  and  Aristocles, 
and  has  for  scholars  Myron  and  Pheidias,  Athenians,  as  well 
as  Polycletus,  an  Argive  like  himself. 

The  early  notices  of  Greek  sculpture  defy  definite  chrono- 
logy ;  allusions  to  particular  artists  are  scant,  confused,  or 
contradictory ;  notices  of  their  comparative  styles  are  incon- 
clusive. So  many  of  the  most  distinguished  Greeks,  again, 
lived  and  were  active  to  very  advanced  age,  that  this  may 
well  have  been  the  case  with  many  artists ;  and  we  know — 
it  is  a  commonplace  in  the  history  of  arts — how  rapidly  at 
certain  epochs  an  individual  artist  may  advance  in  style,  and 
also  how  long  after  art  generally  has  passed  into  a  totally  new 
style  one  of  the  earlier  innovators  may  continue,  persevering 
in  a  style  at  a  date  when,  but  for  biography,  it  would  be 
unhesitatingly  declared  to  have  been  long  superseded. 

Pausanias  refers  to  Gallon  of  Aegina  as  representative  of 
the  same  archaic  style  of  art  as  Canachus  of  2  Sicyon  ;  and 
Latin  authors,  as  3  Quintilian  and  4  Cicero,  apply  to  the  works 
of  both  the  same  terms  '  hard '  and  '  rigid.' 

1   Pans,  v    27.  i.  a  Ib.  vii.  1 8.  6. 

:i  Quint,  xii.  10.  *  Brut,  xviii.  70. 


250  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Of  the  style  of  Canachus  we  may  form  a  certain  notion, 
from  comparison  of  these  terms  with  recognised  copies  of 
his  celebrated  Apollo,  which  was  carried  off  from  Miletus  by 
the  Persians,  to  be  restored  loug  after  by  Seleucus.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  more  or  less  accurately  repre- 
sented on  coins,  and  then  by  the  small  Payne  Knight  bronze 
now  in  the  British  Museum.  The  date  of  the  original 
work  has  been  somewhat  hastily  assumed  by  Brunn  and 
others  as  later  than  479  B.C.,  on  the  assertion  of  both 
Pausanias  and  Strabo  that  it  was  carried  off  by  Xerxes. 
But  it  surely  is  clear  that  all  these  authorities  transfer  to 
Xerxes  the  earlier  outrages  of  Darius,  who  by  testimony  of 
1  Herodotus  plundered  and  burnt  the  temple  at  Didyma, 
and  transferred  captives  from  Miletus  to  Ampe  on  the 
Tigris.  Brunn,  in  his  .  History  of  Greek  Artists,  also  con- 
fuses lonians  with  Aeolians  and  Miletus  with  Miletopolis 
in  2  Mysia. 

This  statue  was  colossal;  another  at  Thebes,  a  repetition 
of  it  in  both  magnitude  and  design,  was  of  cedar.  To  Cana- 
chus is  also  ascribed  a  seated  temple  statue  of  Aphrodite  of 
ivory  and  gold — chryselephantine — at  Corinth  ;  a  valuable 
notice  of  the  early  date  of  this  sumptuous  form  of  art. 

The  Aeginetan  artist  Gallon,  who  ranked  with  this  master, 
could  not  have  been  unimportant. 

Another  Aeginetan,  of  whose  very  important  works  we 
have  abundant  notices  in  Pausanias,  though  strangely  enough 
not  a  single  mention  of  him  occurs  elsewhere,  was  Onatas ; 
and  here  we  obtain  a  certified  date ;  he  was  in  full  repu- 
tation Ol.  78.  3  =  496  B.C.,  not  long  after  which  date  one 
of  his  works  was  dedicated  by  Deinomenes,  son  of  Hiero,  at 
Olympia.  He  wrought,  at  least  principally,  in  bronze,  gods 
and  heroes  and  victors  in  the  games ;  and  in  the  character- 
isation of  his  works  by  Pausanias,  we  find  the  Aeginetans 

1  Herod,  vi.  iy.  '  Brunn,  p.  76. 


xviii.]  EARLY  AEGINETAN  ARTISTS.  251 

indicated  as  usually  more  archaic,  for  all  their  merit,  than 
the  archaic  school  of  Attica. 

A  contemporary  of  Onatas  was  Glaucias  of  Aegina ;  we 
only  read  of  his  statues  of  Olympic  victors;  of  Gelon  with 
his  chariot ;  of  Theagenes  the  renowned  athlete  of  Thasos, 
victor  in  boxing,  Ol.  75=480  B.C.,  the  year  of  Salamis,  and 
as  Pancratiast  in  the  following  Olympiad  ;  and  of  Glaucus 
of  Carystus,  whom  he  represented  characteristically,  in  the 
attitude  of  that  sciamachy — sparring — in  which  he  pecu- 
liarly excelled. 

The  material  of  all  the  Aeginetan  sculpture  of  which  we 
have  literary  record  is  metal,  chiefly  bronze ;  it  was  perhaps 
with  a  certain  symbolical  intention  that  the  colossal  Zeus — 
ten  cubits  high,  erected  at  Plataea  by  the  Hellenes  collec- 
tively, and  work  of  an  Aeginetan,  Anaxagoras,  not  otherwise 
known — was  formed  of  '  iron.  The  recovered  sculptures  of 
the  Aeginetan  pediments,  although  of  marble,  seem  to  follow 
a  precedent  or  conform  to  a  taste  established  by  familiar  use 
of  bronze.  Each  figure  stands  freely  on  its  legs,  with  no 
obligation  for  support  to  stump  or  attached  drapery,  or  other 
of  the  usual  contrivances  in  marble  sculpture  for  securing 
against  collapse  by  proper  weight.  The  comparatively  small 
scale  of  the  figures  of  course  renders  this  more  easy,  but  still 
the  feat  is  remarkable ;  each  figure  rested  upon  its  plinth, 
that  was  let  into  the  cornice  and  run  with  lead,  and  except 
for  some  ornamental  adjuncts  to  helmets,  was  formed  from 
a  single  piece  of  marble,  even  to  the  shield  that  in  some 
parts  did  not  exceed  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  thickness. 
The  parts  of  the  figures  that,  as  turned  towards  the  tympa- 
num, must  have  been  always  invisible  from  below,  are  finished 
with  all  the  scrupulous  care  that  was  bestowed  on  the  fronts. 

The  subject  of  one  composition  certainly,  and  probably  of 
both,  was  a  combat  for  possession  of  a  slain  warrior.  Athene 

1  Paus.  v.  23.  i. 


252  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

stands  upright  in  the  centre,  represented  with  only  a  quali- 
fication of  the  formality  that  might  pertain  to  her  archaic 
statue,  but  still  with  so  much  as  to  vindicate  her  interest, 
indeed  protective  interference,  in  the  fight.  This  point  is  some- 
what obscured  by  misarrangement  of  the  grouped  casts  in  the 
British  Museum ;  the  feet  of  the  goddess  ought  to  protrude 
below  the  knees  of  the  prostrate  warrior  who  lay  further  to 
her  right.  The  angles  are  occupied  by  extended  wounded 
figures,  of  which  the  correspondence  is  heightened  into  a 
blunt  and  over-formal  antithesis;  the  remoter  arm  is  bent 
in  one  case,  extended  in  the  other ;  the  remoter  leg  crosses 
over  the  nearer  in  one  case,  in  the  other  is  behind.  Then 
follows  on  either  side  a  triplet  of  figures, — a  kneeling  archer 
in  each  group  behind  an  advancing  protagonist  and  with 
a  kneeling  spearman  behind  him.  Here  contrast  is  chiefly 
entrusted  to  some  difference  of  costume  in  the  archers,  and 
then  to  the  variety  that  is  given  by  the  shield  arms  being 
necessarily  next  to  the  tympanum  on  one  side,  and  the  spear 
arm  on  the  other.  The  most  marked  contrast  of  all  ensues 
between  the  figures  that  answer  indeed  as  figure  for  figure 
on  either  side  of  the  goddess,  but  are  as  different  as  the 
prostrate  in  death  from  the  enemy  who  crouches  forward  to' 
seize  and  drag  him  away. 

In  such  arrangement  there  is  recognition  of  the  symmetry 
appropriate  for  sculpture  that  is  to  be  associated  with 
strictly  symmetrical  architecture ;  but  at  best  there  is  only 
a  commencing  break  into  that  bolder  rhythmical  distribu- 
tion that  can  balance  group  by  group,  of  which  both  the 
elements  and  arrangement  are  contrasted,  as  exemplified 
beyond  all  rivalry  in  the  pediments  of  the  Parthenon. 

The  drapery  of  the  Athene  is  stiff  and  formal,  and  none 
appears  elsewhere  to  relieve  the  nude ;  it  is  much  if  we  may 
say  that  there  is  a  poor  substitution  attempted  by  interposing 
on  either  side  the  more  entirely,  and  closely  covered  and 
accoutred  archers. 


xviii.]  THE  SCULPTURES  OF  AEGINA.  253 

Archaic  formality  is  retained  in  the  stiffly  curled  hair  and 
set  smile  of  the  combatants,  even  of  the  dying,  even  of  the 
spectatress  goddess.  One  fashion  however  does  but  preserve 
the  Doric  custom  of  a  toilette  of  battle,  as  exemplified  by 
the  Spartans  preparing  for  battle  at  Thermopylae  ;  and  Homer 
ascribes  such  a  smile  to  Aeginetan  Ajax  at  the  very  crisis 
of  combat  :  — 


Tofo*  dp'  Alas  wpro  nfXa/ptos  ep/cos  'f 
WldStoajv  @\offvpoi(n  •npoawira.ai'  vtpOt  St  noaalv 
"Hi'e  [*a/<pcL  £<)3ds,  Kpatideav 


If  colour  was  crude  on  the  architecture,  it  was  still  more 
so  on  the  sculpture,  where  armour  and  eyes  and  lips  and 
wounds  were  certainly  painted,  as  well  as  probably  emblems 
on  the  shields. 

The  subject  of  the  best  preserved  pediment  is,  I  do  not 
doubt,  the  contest  over  the  body,  not  of  Patroclus,  but 
of  Achilles  himself,  the  rescue  of  which  was  the  great  glory 
of  the  Aeacid  Ajax.  Hector  with  Paris  as  an  archer  and  a 
characteristic  figure,  are  then  recognised  on  one  side,  as  Ajax 
and  his  constant  comrade  Teucer,  and  perhaps  Ulysses,  on 
the  other.  The  kneeling  Hercules  of  the  other  pediment,  an 
archer  as  he  is  described  in  the  Odyssey,  gives  sufficient  assur- 
ance that  its  subject  was  that  earlier  contest  with  Trojans  in 
which  Telamon,  as  ally  of  Alcides,  gained  his  bride  Hesione  ; 
a  second  glorification  of  heroes  of  Aegina  whom  Pindar  lauds 
as  unfailingly  in  every  Aeginetan  ode,  and  in  victorious  con- 
flict in  the  wars  against  Asia,  of  which  Herodotus  himself 
regards  that  with  Xerxes  as  a  continuation. 

The  contrast  of  these  works  to  the  Pheidian  pediments 
may  not  be  greater  than  was  that  of  a  drama  of  Phrynichus 
with  one  of  Sophocles  ;  certain  in  any  case  it  is  that  very 
decisive  archaism  clung  obstinately  to  the  art.  An  example  of 
how  it  could  defend  its  ground  is  seen  in  a  bas-relief  found 
at  Eleusis,  where  on  the  very  same  slab  one  figure  of  a  group 
1  II  tad,  vii.  211. 


254  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

is  in  the  later,  another,  for  no  discoverable  reason,  in  the 
style  that  was  all  but  obsolete. 

The  notice  which  has  been  already  quoted  of  the  statue 
of  Glaucus  in  the  attitude  of  'sparring,'  by  Glaucias  of 
Aegina,  may  be  regarded  as  a  link  in  history  which  connects 
Aeginetan  art  with  that  of  Pythagoras  of  Rhegium  and 
Myron  of  Attica,  who  are  both  celebrated  as  breaking 
through  ancient  rigour  more  or  less  completely,  and  at  the 
same  time  venturing  boldly  upon  characteristic — dramatic — 
attitudes  and  gestures.  The  art  of  the  Italian  colony  was 
at  this  time  capable  of  holding  its  own  in  competition  with 
Attic,  for  Pythagoras  was  held  to  have  surpassed  Myron 
in  a  figure  of  a  Pancratiast  at  *  Delphi.  Particularly  cele- 
brated was  his  statue  at  Syracuse  of  a  figure  painfully 
limping  from  the  suffering  caused  by  an  ulcer, — as  I  have 
elsewhere  inferred, — a  Philoctetes ;  a  group  of  great  interest 
was  ascribed  to  him  of  the  Theban  brothers,  Eteocles  and 
Polynices,  dying  by  mutual  blows. 

Myron  was  of  Eleutherae  in  Attica,  a  town  on  the  road 
to  Boeotia,  a  hint  that  criticism  has  sometimes  too  eagerly 
seized  on  to  impute  to  his  art  Boeotian  characteristics  that 
would  not  otherwise  be  suspected.  A  vast  number  of  his. 
works  are  on  record,  from  single  and  associated  figures  of 
animals  as  well  as  of  men  and  gods,  in  bronze,  and  some 
colossal,  to  modelling  and  chasings  in  silver.  Like  his  rival, 
he  is  one  of  the  artists  who  are  signalised  by  innovations  in  art 
together  with  retention  of  considerable  archaism.  By  rare 
good  fortune  we  have  certain  representations  of  some  of  his 
works,  which  are  sufficient  to  avouch  that,  like  Pythagoras, 
he  was  studious  of  '  rhythm  and  symmetry,'  in  other  words, 
when  sculpture  is  in  question,  of  proportion  and  composition. 
The  daring  attitude  of  his  Discobolus,  who  bends  down  and 
forwards  and  sideways  preparatory  to  the  delivery  of  his  cast, 

1  Plin.  II.  N.  xxxiv.  59. 


xvm.]  PYTHAGORAS  AND  MYRON.  255 

is  described  with  admiration  by  the  ancients,  and  is  reflected 
for  us  in  various  copies  and  repetitions, — one  is  in  the  British 
Museum, — which  however  differ  too  much  among  themselves 
for  us  to  accept  any  one  as  an  exact  reproduction.  His 
exhausted  foot-racer,  Ladas,  represented  as  just  winning,  but 
winning  only  at  the  expense  of  his  last  breath,  was  almost 
equally  celebrated.  A  figure  in  the  Lateran  Museum  has 
been  recognised  with  great  plausibility  as  representing 
Marsyas,  from  his  group  of  the  Satyr  in  an  attitude  of 
astonishment  at  Athene  as  she  flung  away  the  pipes  that 
he  was  to  take  up  to  be  his  bane.  It  is  difficult  to  resist 
an  impression,  on  regarding  this  statue,  that  Pheidias  was 
under  the  same  obligation  to  the  original  for  the  Poseidon 
of  his  west  pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  that  Michael  Angelo 
did  not  disdain  to  owe  to  the  Christ  of  Orcagna  for  the 
central  figure  in  his  Last  Judgment. 

How  far  and  in  what  manner  Ageladas  of  Argos  showed 
the  way  by  his  own  productions  to  the  marvellous  advances 
that  were  made  by  those  who  are  assigned  to  him  as  scholars, 
we  cannot  say.  Not  a  few  of  his  works  are  recorded,  but 
unfortunately  in  no  instance  with  a  characterisation  of  style. 
It  is  significant  however  that  it  is  not  to  himself  but  to  his 
scholar  Myron  that  so  much  merit  is  assigned  for  a  decisive 
break  with  archaism,  from  which  Pheidias  and  Polycletus 
were  entirely  emancipated.  How  defective  are  the  materials 
for  a  history  of  early  art  appears  in  the  fact  that  we  have  not 
a  single  notice  of  that  grand  transition  in  the  treatment  of 
drapery  which  was  equivalent  in  itself  to  a  revolution  in  art. 
Apart  from  this  the  glory  must  be  assigned  to  Myron  and 
his  competitors  of  occupying  in  ancient  art  the  position  of 
the  Masaccios  and  Mantegnas  in  the  history  of  modern 
painting. 

Two  Athenian  artists,  Critics  and  Nesiotes,  in  148o  B.C. 

1  Mann.  Par. 


256  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

made  statues  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  in  substitution 
of  those  which  were  carried  off  by  l  Xerxes  three  years  pre- 
viously. Some  records  of  this  group  have  been  traced  on 
coins  and  vases,  and,  it  is  believed,  even  copies  in  sculpture. 
By  comparison  of  these  it  is  still  possible  to  appreciate  the 
skill  with  which  the  figures  of  the  two  youths  rushing  forward 
together  to  an  attack  were  so  composed  as  to  display  the 
action  of  both  in  effective  combination  from  whichever  side 
they  were  regarded. 

1  Paus.  i.  8.  5;  Lucian,  Phllops.  18. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

A   DECADE    OF   POLITICAL   AND   PAKTY    DEVELOPMENTS. 

FROM  476  down  to  466  B.  c.  the  page  of  Greek  history 
presents  what  may  seem  to  be  a  happy  blank.  No  collisions 
with  Persia  are  set  down  within  this  period,  and  not  even 
any  considerable  dissensions  among1  the  Greeks  themselves. 
It  might  be  supposed  that  they  were  now  enjoying  the  un- 
mixed rewards  of  patriotic  exertions  and  free  co-operation, 
devoting  themselves  entirely  to  the  reconstruction  of  their 
industries,  the  celebration  of  their  festivals,  the  production 
and  dedication  of  the  numerous  and  elaborate  works  of  art  by 
which  they  commemorated  their  deliverance  and  acknow- 
ledged their  gratitude  to  the  gods  for  glory,  for  safety,  and 
for  wealth.  Political  feelings  however,  we  may  be  sure,  were 
not  in  suspended  animation  during  this  interval,  nor  could 
significant  political  events,  however  comparatively  sparse  and 
unobtrusive,  be  wanting ;  but  historians  neglected  the  tame- 
ness  of  the  time  to  dissert  in  preference  on  the  broader  and 
more  startling  effects  of  Persian  or  Peloponnesian  war,  or 
were  diverted  to  fill  up  what  seemed  a  gap  by  annals  of 
opportunely  livelier  events  in  the  colonial  West.  Sicily  and 
lower  Italy  supplied  some  highly  exciting  incidents, — tales  of 
the  courts  of  Hiero  and  Theron,  the  important  naval  victory 
gained  by  Hiero  over  Etruscans  in  the  Bay  of  Cumae  in 
474  B.C.,  and  the  crushing  defeat  of  the  Dorians  of  Tarentum 
by  the  lapygians  473  B.C.,  with  its  consequent  supplanting  of 
Tarentiue  oligarchy  by  a  democracy. 

Deserted  thus  by  the  detailed  guidance  that  we  could  wish 

s 


258  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

for  in  central  Greece,  we  are  left  to  interpret  a  few  general 
notices  as  best  we  may,  and  so  elicit  explanation  of  what 
contrasts  are  discoverable  between  the  situation  of  affairs'  at 
the  opening-  of  the  period  and  at  its  conclusion. 

Important  changes,  it  is  certain,  were  gradually  super- 
vening throughout  this  period  in  the  relations  of  Athens,  not 
only  to  Sparta  and  the  Peloponnesian  states,  but  also  to  her 
own  confederates  in  the  alliance  assumed  as  still  subsisting  for 
active  prosecution  of  hostilities  against  the  Persian.  And  it 
was  impossible  that  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  policy 
dictated  by  such  changes  or  inducing  them,  should  not  be 
very  decided  at  Athens  itself,  where  the  control  of  public 
affairs  on  this  extended  scale  offered  so  tempting  a  prize  to 
the  ambitious.  The  value  of  party  combination  for  the  com- 
passing of  political  power  was  no  new  discovery  at  Athens, 
and  the  leaders  of  party,  now  that  Aristides,  probably  through 
age,  had  comparatively  retired,  were  recognised  distinctly 
enough  in  Themistocles  and  Cimon.  By  the  circumstances  of 
the  time  a  large  measure  of  popular  support  was  enjoyed  by 
either.  Themistocles,  as  creator  of  the  fleet  with  its  fortified 
arsenal  at  the  Piraeus,  and  leader  in  its  prime  glory  at 
Salamis,  was  the  proper  representative  of  the  new  democracy; 
while  Cimon,  though  more  immediately  allied  with  the  aristo- 
cracy, had  no  slight  popular  hold,  in  some  degree  from  the 
memory  of  his  father  Miltiades,  still  more  from  his  own 
considerable  achievements,  and  also  from  the  open  and  liberal 
manners  that  are  never  so  appreciated,  even  in  the  most 
resolute  democracy,  as  from  a  born  aristocrat.  Influential 
members  again  of  the  Eupatrids — of  that  aristocracy  of  de- 
scent which  comprised  some  who  were  devoted  to  all  that  was 
desperately  oligarchical,  not  to  say  tyrannical  in  aspiration — 
were  the  Alcmaeonids,  who  knew  well  how  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  connection  for  the  sake  of  aid  from  those  of  less 
flexible  principles  than  themselves,  but  had  ever  in  view  to 
effectuate  a  compromise  at  a  favourable  time,  and  so  to 


xix.]      GRADUAL  SUBORDINATION  OF  ALLIES.        259 

acquire  the  guidance  which  by  management  might  become 
equivalent  to  the  masteiy  of  the  democracy.  Of  such  a 
section  Cimon  would  naturally  receive  the  support,  but  only 
until  it  produced  from  itself  a  rival  and  a  competitor. 

On  the  great  question  of  the  treatment  of  the  allies,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  Themistocles  was  disposed  to  carry 
matters  with  a  high  hand,  and  to  forego  no  opportunity  of 
making  the  leadership  of  Athens  stringently  imperative. 
Whether  the  synod  of  representatives  met  regularly  and 
debated  and  voted  at  Delos  or  not,  would  not  much  alter  the 
case  ;  the  preponderance  of  Athens  would  enable  her  easily  to 
rule  every  discussion,  every  decision.  It  was  therefore  a  con- 
sequence in  the  nature  of  things  that  however,  as  time  went 
on,  alarm  at  the  urgency  of  danger  from  Persia  might  decline, 
there  was  decided  indisposition  to  admit  of  any  question  as  to 
reduction  in  the  assessed  contributions  or  of  the  rigour  with 
which  they  were  levied.  » Already  even  while  apprehension 
was  still  subsisting,  the  same  difference  in  respect  of  energy 
and  organisation  that  had  appeared  in  the  resistances  offered 
by  Ionia  and  by  Athens  when  they  were  tried  independently, 
had  begun  to  tell  in  a  manner  that  encouraged  Athenian 
pretensions.  Already  before  any  thought  came  into  ques- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  allied  cities  of  repudiating  continued 
assessment,  there  was  a  declared  preference  among  many  of 
them  to  compound  for  exemption  from  personal  service,  to 
furnish  ships  rather  than  their  quota  of  men,  or  with  still 
more  alacrity  to  substitute  both  for  men  and  ships  a  contri- 
bution in  money.  The  Athenian  population,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  fairly  taken  to  the  sea — to  public  service  afloat  that 
involved  remote  voyages  and  renunciation  or  suspense  of 
private  occupation,  and  the  policy  of  its  leaders  gave  them 
every  encouragement  in  this  direction.  Arrangements  for 
money  compositions  therefore,  which  went  to  supply  liberal 
pay  to  Athenian  crews  and  to  fit  out  Athenian  vessels,  were 
readily  accepted.  The  efficiency  of  a  war  trireme  depended, 

S    2 


260  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

from  the  tactics  that  were  applicable,  on  discipline  and  train- 
ing that  were  not  speedily  acquired,  and  so  by  degrees  Athens 
became,  by  the  habits  of  her  population  as  well  as  the  numbers 
of  her  ships,  not  so  much  the  preponderant  as  the  sole  naval 
power  of  the  Aegean.  Only  the  larger  islands  of  Lesbos, 
Chios,  and  Samos  remained  in  the  distinct  condition  of  pro- 
perly autonomous  allies,  and  still  kept  up  war  fleets,  though 
comparatively  inconsiderable. 

The  affection  however  for  positive  autonomy  in  even  very 
small  Greek  cities  was  so  much  a  part  of  Greek  nature,  that 
the  sense  of  subordination  which  qualified  the  relief  obtained  by 
such  compositions  could  not  before  very  long  be  otherwise 
than  galling.  Nor  were  the  Athenians  disposed  either  to 
indulgence  or  tenderness  in  administration;  they  had  the 
consciousness,  and  did  not  care  to  conceal  it,  of  possessing 
qualities  themselves  that  were  proper  to  a  superior  and 
governing  race ;  they  assumed  the  tone  and  independence  of 
command,  and  took  slight  care  to  mask  the  fact  that  their 
nominal  allies  were  rapidly  declining  into  the  condition  of 
subjects.  It  is  only  at  the  conclusion  of  the  period  we  are 
now  concerned  with  that  we  have  notice  of  hostile  collisions 
induced  by  these  growing  discontents  ;  but  the  expressions  of 
Thucydides  seem  to  authorise  the  l  inference  that  outbursts  of 
contumacy  were  early  as  well  as  frequent,  and  had  been 
followed  up  by  Athens,  in  instances  that  have  escaped  par- 
ticular record,  with  a  severity  that  left  the  offenders  thereafter 
in  a  perfectly  different  relative  position. 

All  this  implies  the  constant  exercise  and  cruising  of  the 
Athenian  fleet,  quite  apart  from  special  expeditions.  In  such 
operations  Themistocles  was  at  home ;  and  the  notice  occurs, 
among  examples  of  his  ostentation  of  ability  and  distinction, 
how  on  one  occasion  of  assuming  command  he  put  off  the 
settlement  of  all  his  matters  of  business,  private  as  well  as 

1  Thuc.  i.  99. 


xix.]      AUTONOMY  IN  RELATION  TO  EMPIRE.        261 

public,  for  the  sake  of  the  display  of  his  multifarious  concerns 
and  facility  of  despatch,  on  the  very  day  of  l  embarcation. 
The  ambitious  views  which  he  entertained  for  the  city  that  he 
had  re-created  were  without  limit;  and  his  faculty  of  poli- 
tical insight,  so  celebrated  by  Thucydides,  gave  him  clearest 
perceptions  of  the  openings  that  would  conduct  its  present 
largely  extended  power  most  directly  to  the  limitless  beyond. 
The  position  that  Persia  seemed  to  be  rapidly  forfeiting,  of  a 
vigorously  organised  and  overwhelming  empire,  left  a  vacancy 
for  a  successor  who  could  profit  by  the  opportunity  and  by 
the  examples  of  her  glory  and  her  decline.  But  for  a  Greek 
state  to  be  her  successor  or  rival,  the  relations  of  the 
states  of  Hellas  could  not  be  unchanged.  The  first  diffi- 
culty and  the  last  in  the  way  of  the  largest  organisation,  was 
the  inveterate  Hellenic  tendency  to  mere  municipal,  or  at 
best  cantonal  independencies,  asserting  for  themselves  the 
right  of  war  and  peace,  of  exclusive  treaties  and  legislation. 
To  the  disorders  that  ensued  it  is  due  that  even  Herodotus 
refers  to  the  conquests  of  Ionia  by  the  Persians  with  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  relief  as  pacifications — pacifications,  that  is,-  of 
the  very  internal  feuds  and  quarrels  that  had  disabled  them 
from  uniting  for  effective  self-protection.  Hellas  no  doubt 
could  not  have  been  what  it  was,  have  done  what  it  had  done, 
but  for  the  spirit  of  individuality  of  which  this  tendency  was 
an  outgrowth ;  but  its  difficulties,  always  great,  were  rapidly 
becoming  inconsistent  with  the  necessities  of  changed  times, 
and  the  true  problem  of  politics  was  how  to  carry  over  the 
best  of  its  advantages ;  the  Athenian  could  discern  that  the 
option  lay  between  succeeding  to  empire  or  succumbing  to  it. 
For  such  a  succession  the  irresistible  predominance  of  a  central 
power  was  a  condition,  and  thus  direct  constraint  or  the 
threat  of  it,  its  equivalent,  was  applied  without  remorse  to  the 
minor  allies,  who  might  show  impatience  at  demands  upon 

1  Plut.  TJiemist. 


262  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CUAP. 

their  active  services  or  even  payments  in  composition.  Im- 
patience could  not  but  spring  up  under  such  conditions  among 
communities  of  which  the  restricted  limits  admitted  of  no 
interests  so  important  as  local  distinction,  local  festivals  and 
festivities,  and  the  pursuit  of  wealth;  while  they  fostered 
narrow-mindedness  that  would  require  danger  to  be  very 
close  to  them  indeed — such  in  all  ages  is  the  story  of  small 
confederate  republics — before  it  roused  them  thoroughly,  and 
to  continue  very  close  to  them  if  they  were  to  remain  for 
long  united  and  alert. 

In  the  more  important  communities,  such  as  Thebes  or 
Samos,  the  hold  of  Athens  upon  loyalty  to  alliance  was 
largely  or  chiefly  dependent  on  the  security  given  by  her 
alliance  to  the  possession  of  power  by  the  democratical  party. 
A  firmly-planted  democracy  constituted  an  Athenian  garrison, 
an  Athenian  outpost. 

Against  what  an  opposition  such  a  party  had  to  strengthen 
itself  at  Samos,  where  aristocrat ical  traditions  maintained 
themselves,  as  at  Athens,  by  certain  traditions  of  the  pomps 
and  indulgences  of  a  tyranny — of  the  court  6f  Polycrates — is 
evidenced  by  the  convulsions  that  ultimately  led  to  its  over- 
throw and  a  very  serious  revolt.  There  is  then  nothing  that 
should  surprise  us  in  the  fullest  sympathy  and  co-operation  of 
democratic  Samians  in  power  with  the  Athenian  policy,  and 
even  to  the  extent  of  being  the  proposers  of  the  removal  of 
the  treasury  of  the  confederation,  and  with  it,  as  of  course,  the 
synod,  from  Delos  to  '  Athens.  The  accumulation  of  the  fund 
after  a  few  years  might  well  seem  to  demand  that  a  protec- 
tion of  the  strongest  walls  should  be  superadded  to  that  of 
sanctity ;  Athens,  as  collector  and  disburser  of  the  fund, 
could  make  as  many  difficulties  and  inflict  as  much  incon- 
venience as  she  chose,  while  appearing,  if  she  cared  to  be 
at  the  trouble,  to  be  quite  satisfied  with  the  first  arrange- 
ment, which  was  now  finally  superseded. 
1  Plut.  Arutidet,  25. 


xix.]     THE  TREASURY  REMOVED  TO  ATHENS.       263 

Some  more  ancient  authority  is  no  doubt  represented  by 
Justin  when  he  dates  this  l  transference  several  years  later, 
after  the  dangerous  sympathy  of  Sparta  with  the  revolt  of 
Thasos.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  depth  and  designs  of  this 
sympathy  remained  secret  for  a  year  or  two  at  least ;  the 
meditated  invasion  of  Attica  on  that  occasion  by  the  Lace- 
daemonians, avouched  by  Thucydides,  was  secret  at  the  time, 
and  not  notorious  enough  to  prevent  the  friendly  aid  of 
Cimon's  expedition  to  Ithome  soon  after.  Where  one  authority 
must  needs  be  sacrificed,  I  adopt  in  preference  the  record  of 
Plutarch ;  there  is  a  confirmatory  sentence  in  Deinarchus  that 
Aristides  in  this  case,  as  in  the  extension  of  the  democracy, 
assented  to  and  even  promoted  a  measure  which  in  itself  bears 
a  certain  resemblance  to  the  less  scrupulous  policy  of  Themis- 
tocles.  The  transference  however  may  easily  have  had  full 
and  manifest  justification;  and  that  it  was  passed  over  so 
slightly  by  the  historians,  rather  implies  its  adoption  with 
a  facility  that  is  in  accordance  with  the  universal  confidence 
in  Aristides ;  its  consequence  however  could  not  but  have 
been  even  more  important  morally  than  materially,  as  con- 
clusively expressing  the  sanctioned  right  of  Athens  to  ex- 
tended metropolitan  control. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  abstention  during 
all  these  years  from  any  offensive  operations  against  Persia, 
of  sufficient  importance  to  enforce  an  historical  allusion  ;  this 
may  well  have  been  due  on  the  one  hand  to  the  retirement  of 
the  Persians  from  collisions  which  had  so  little  prospered,  and 
to  the  comparative  insignificance,  whatever  their  number,  of 
those  that  might  have  taken  place  in  restoring  the  independ- 
ence of  minor  cities  and  territories;  but  indications  are  not 
wanting  that  it  was  chiefly  because  Athens  was  now  more 
immediately  concerned  in  extending,  or  preparing  to  extend, 
her  influence  within  the  limits  of  Hellas.  There  is  a  tale  in 

1  Just.  iii.  6. 


264  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Plutarch  to  which  we  have  already  adverted,  inadmissible  as 
literally  told,  but  which  cannot  but  be  noticed  once  again,  as 
involving  elements  which,  however  disarranged,  are  very  dis- 
tinctly in  general  harmony  with  the  situation.  Themistocles, 
it  is  said,  conceived  a  scheme  for  assuring  the  supremacy  of 
the  Athenians  by  burning  the  Hellenic  fleet  when  it  was 
stationed  for  the  winter  at  Pagasae  after  the  retreat  of 
1  Xerxes,  or  generally  to  burn  the  Greek  naval  2  station. 
That  the  story  was  current  in  more  forms  than  one  is  proved 
by  a  version  of  the  project  quoted  by  Cicero  as  referring  to 
Gythium,  the  port  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  and  which  was 
destined  to  be  burnt  by  Tolmides  at  later  date ;  all  accounts 
agree  that  the  opposition  of  Aristides  was  fatal  to  its  enter- 
tainment. Through  this  haze  and  confusion  we  at  least  may 
be  justified  in  discerning  that  Themistocles,  who  had  laid  out 
the  walls  of  Athens  so  as  to  defy  the  land  force  of  the 
Spartans,  was  prepared  to  put  aside  every  scruple,  should 
opportunity  occur,  to  render  the  formation  of  a  rival  Hellenic 
fleet,  especially  by  Sparta,  an  impossibility.  Even  less  than 
the  infallible  faculty  of  divination  that  is  ascribed  to  Themis- 
tocles, would  apprise  him  that  rivalry  alone,  still  more  when 
necessarily  compounded  with  jealous  apprehension,  must  sooner 
or  later  bring  on  a  conflict  to  prove  which  of  the  two  powers, 
Athenian  or  Spartan,  Dorian  or  Ionian,  was  not  merely  to 
have  superior  control  in  Greece,  but  to  positively  check  and 
overbear  the  other.  That  he  was  even  prepared  to  take  the 
issue  at  once,  in  his  own  time  and  the  earlier  the  better,  may 
not  be  too  much  to  infer  when  we  have  followed  his  career  to 
its  catastrophe. 

This  conflict  then,  for  better  or  worse,  was  deferred  ;  but  in 
the  meantime  the  influence  of  Athens  might  assert  a  still 
wider  range,  and  with  Themistocles  again  are  connected  some 
hints  that  her  views  were  already  directed  westward  across 

J  Pint.  Thcmitt.  ao.  »  Ib  Arisiid.  21. 


xix.]  DORIAN  ALLIANCE  PRECARIOUS.  265 

the  Ionian  sea,  to  Italy  at  least.  When  Cimon,  his  political 
opponent,  expressed  the  contrasted  direction  of  his  sympathies 
by  naming-  his  sons  Thessalus,  Eleus,  and  Lacedaemonius,  it 
cannot  have  been  without  meaning  that  Themistocles,  after 
adopting-  such  self-asserting-  names  for  other  children  as 
Archeptolis,  Cleophantus,  and  Nicomache,  named  two  other 
daug-hters  Italia  and  Sybaris;  as  the  daughter  of  his  exile 
afterwards  was  named  by  him  Asia.  The  colony  to  Thurium, 
which  dates  under  the  administration  of  Pericles,  would  thus 
be  a  fulfilment  of  his  earlier  abortive  but  definite  project. 

We  are  without  information  as  to  the  precise  relation  to 
Athens  of  those  states  which,  having  a  certain  dependence 
upon  her  rather  than  on  Sparta,  were  yet  not  members  of  the 
Delian  confederation.  In  this  position  was  Thebes,  where 
democracy  had  been  installed  after  the  suppression  of  Medism; 
and  the  other  Boeotian  towns,  which  the  same  change  had  re- 
leased from  Theban  control,  however  much  of  Athenian,  on 
whatever  terms,  may  have  taken  its  place.  The  same  remark 
applies  to  Phocis  in  a  qualified  degree,  and  more  positively  to 
Locris,  the  Medism  of  which  would  afford  pretext  for  any 
amount  of  interference.  It  is  highly  probable  that  a  certain 
command  was  obtained  by  Athens,  through  her  present  posi- 
tion in  relation  to  these  regions,  over  the  northern  ports  on 
the  Corinthian  gulf,  the  ancient  outlet  of  colonising  lonians 
to  Sicily,  Italy,  and  the  intermediate  islands.  The  lonians  of 
Achaia  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  gulf  were  either  brought 
under  Athenian  control,  or,  which  is  much  the  same  thing, 
accepted  the  Athenian  alliance  at  a  later  date  ;  but  this  event, 
like  the  interference  with  the  Spartan  control  of  Delphi,  seems 
only  to  have  given  form  and  reality  to  foregone  projects  for 
broadening  the  basis  of  Athenian  power,  which  in  their  mere 
existence  as  projects  had  a  reality  of  their  own,  and  which, 
when  they  came  to  be  surmised  by  the  rival  or  the  enemy, 
had  certain  very  serious  consequences  forthwith. 

The  policy  of  Themistocles  to  found  the  influence  of  Athens 


266  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

above  all  things  on  a  predominant  navy,  and  to  divert  to  its 
formation,  and  to  the  ports  and  arsenals  which  it  required,  the 
chief  resources  of  the  State,  was  carried  in  the  first  instance, 
as  we  have  seen,  against  the  opposition  of  a  party  which  urged 
the  advantage  and  necessity  of  reliance  on  a  land  force.  A 
union  of  the  two  might  indeed  well  seem  indispensable  for 
the  support  of  the  vast  project  which  was  now  more  or  less 
avowedly  and  which,  it  is  certain,  was  consciously,  entertained. 
It  was  by  -co-operation  of  an  army  and  a  navy  that  Persia 
had  subjugated  Ionia,  its  coast  cities  and  the  islands ;  it  was 
by  like  concurrent  action  alone  that  the  liberation  commenced 
in  the  Saronic  gulf  had  been  completed  on  the  slopes  of 
Cithaeron.  It  was  for  want  of  a  powerfully  co-operating 
land-force  that  the  liberation  of  the  Greeks  of  Asia  could  not 
penetrate  beyond  the  very  fringe  of  the  sea-coast;  and  if 
Athens  in  the  pursuit  of  her  designs  had  to  lay  her  account 
with  the  possibility  of  a  collision  with  Sparta,  the  want  of  a 
countervailing  heavy-armed  force  involved  the  surrender  of 
the  open  country  of  Attica  to  plunder  and  devastation. 

A  remnant  of  the  old  party,  ever  ready  to  take  a  chance  for 
reviving  its  fixed  idea,  might  proudly  vindicate  the  ability  of 
the  Athenian  hoplites  to  cope  with  the  redoubted  Spartans  in 
open  field ;  the  less  audacious  might  still  be  sanguine  that  the 
support  of  a  cavalry  force  would  at  least  make  the  balance 
even.  When  we  weigh  the  impression  however  of  the  repu- 
tation and  achievements  of  the  Dorian  hoplites,  it  becomes 
quite  intelligible  that  a  politician  like  Cimon  should  patrioti- 
cally and  in  all  sincerity  hold  at  last,  that  while  Athens  was 
bound  to  do  her  best  to  maintain  an  efficient  land-force — 
a  force  as  efficient  as  possible — her  great  necessity  still, 
whether  as  operating  against  Persia  or  as  hoping  to  continue 
undisturbed  at  home,  was  to  persevere  in  a  frank  and  cordial 
alliance  with  Sparta.  Thus  would  the  power  of  Hellas  be  a 
truly  perfect  organism,  and  '  limp  neither  on  one  leg  nor  the 
other.'  So  might  the  action  against  Persia  go  on  with  fullest 


xix.]  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  DEMOCRATIC  EMPIRE.  267 

effect  in  expeditions  both  lucrative  and  glorious,  for  which 
there  were  still  abundant  opportunities ;  while  at  home  the 
recognised  obligation  to  retain  the  sympathies  of  Sparta  by 
deference  to  her  principles,  could  not  but  operate  to  check  the 
constant  encroachments  of  democracy. 

There  is  much  in  this  of  'honest  general  thought  and 
common  good  of  all'  the  Hellenic  family;  but  there  was 
little  that  Themistocles  would  not  denounce  as  obsolete,  or 
deride  as  a  dream.  Athens  was  committed  by  circumstances^ 
first,  and  then  by  all  the  inducements  of  honour  and  of 
revenue,  to  a  new  career,  and  must  make  the  most  of  it ;  must 
do  her  best  no  doubt  to  maintain  power  by  land,  but  would 
assuredly  have  to  rely  at  last  upon  the  navy,  and  might  safely 
do  so,  if  this  were  only  so  maintained  as  to  be  crushingly 
preponderant. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  that  this  may  not  have  been  the  only 
course  that  was  now  open  to  Athens,  albeit  involving  of 
necessity  a  primary  defect  that  was  liable  to  become  more  and 
more  perilous  as  events  moved  on.  As  the  wealth  and  popu- 
lation of  Athens  and  Attica  increased,  the  theory  of  Themis- 
tocles, that  the  Athenians  must  look  to  their  fortified  port  as 
their  refuge  as  well  as  the  basis  of  their  power,  could  only  be 
held  to  in  virtue  of  a  capital  modification,  the  connection  of 
the  city  with  the  Piraeus  by  the  long  walls  which  in  a  few 
years  were  to  unite  the  earlier  and  later  city  into  a  single  vast 
stronghold  upon  the  sea.  By  whomsoever  this  extension  of 
the  original  plan  was  first  proposed,  it  was  cordially  adopted, 
as  we  shall  see,  with  all  its  implications  by  Pericles ;  upon  this 
he  based  his  confidence  that  when  Lacedaemonian  opposition 
broke  out  into  the  violence  which  no  politician  believed 
could  be  postponed  indefinitely,  Athenian  activity  and  power 
would  make  short  work  in  rendering  an  account  of  it;  how 
his  hopes  were  falsified  in  result,  and  mainly  through  the 
catastrophe  of  the  pestilence  that  decimated  the  over-crowded 
city,  is  the  moral  of  the  story  that  we  read  in  Thucydides. 


268  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

The  policy  therefore  which  the  Athenian  demus  accepted  with 
all  its  sacrifices  for  the  maintenance  of  empire,  in  deference 
to  the  arguments  and  eloquence  of  Pericles,  was  the  ulti- 
mate and  most  resolute  application  of  the  conceptions  of 
Themistocles. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  POLITICAL  AND  POETICAL  SCOPE  OF  THE  PERSAE  OF 
AESCHYLUS. 

IT  was  in  the  archonship  of  Menon,  473-472  B.C.,  when 
these  contrasted  policies  were  hardening1  into  form  and  ripen- 
ing for  conflict,  that  Aeschylus  produced  his  play  of  the  Persae. 
In  subject  it  was  at  least  the  same,  and  it  was  said  to  have 
some  correspondence  in  detail,  with  the  Phoenissae  of  Phryni- 
chus,  which  had  subserved  the  glorification  of  Themistocles 
only  four  years  earlier.  The  story  of  Salamis  could  scarcely 
be  'presented  again  with  enhanced  dramatic  force  without 
again  telling  to  the  same  effect,  albeit  the  name  of  Themistocles 
is  suppressed  throughout,  and  no  lines  can  be  detected  as  in- 
troduced to  give  occasion  for  a  spontaneous  outburst  of  recog- 
nition, as  little  as  any  that  tend  to  extenuate  his  merits  by  a 
cavil.  A  more  direct  allusion  is  sometimes  said  to  be  made  to 
Aristides  in  the  description  of  the  exploit  at  the  island 
Psyttaleia ;  but  this  was  only  an  episode ;  even  so  the  name 
of  the  commander  is  suppressed,  and  the  poet  is  deferential 
throughout  to  the  jealousies  of  a  sovereign  people,  who  could 
not  endure  that  the  victory  of  Marathon  should  be  especially 
connected  with  the  name  of  Miltiades,  or  that  the  very  in- 
scriptions, by  which  as  an  unusual  honour  they  commemorated 
the  highly  valued  successes  and  conquests  of  Cimon  in  Thrace, 
should  include  his  name. 

The  notion  is  at  the  same  time  too  absurd  to  controvert, 
though  not  to  have  been  stated  or  adopted,  that  Aeschylus 
in  dramatising  the  story  of  Salamis,  and  insisting  expressly 


270  IIISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

on  the  happy  stratagem  that  determined  Xerxes  to  engage, 
had  in  view  to  derogate  from  the  merits  of  the  Athenian 
commander,  who  was  notoriously  the  author  of  the  stratagem, 
and  in  favour  of  Cimon,  whose  name  never  positively  occurs 
in  connection  with  the  battle  at  all. 

The  Persae  was  one  play  associated  in  a  tetralogy  with 
three  others,  of  which  we  fortunately  have  the  titles,  though 
only  scantiest  fragments ;  and  I  have  now  to  show  that  it  is 
possible  to  recover  such  a  drift  pervading  the  four,  as  vindicates 
for  Aeschylus  the  merit,  which  Aristophanes  asserts  as  proper 
to  the  tragic  poets,  of  being  as  much  the  political  as  the  moral 
monitors  of  their  l  countrymen.  A  poet  who  addressed  a 
serious  play  to  such  an  audience  as  the  Athenian,  that  came 
to  the  theatre  thrilling  with  all  the  agitated  and  suspended 
interests  of  the  politics  of  the  time,  could  scarcely  hope  to 
retain  attention  unless  he  so  chose  his  theme  and  treated  it, 
as  to  affect  however  covertly  whatever  sympathies  were  likely 
at  the  time  to  be  most  alert  and  sensitive ;  he  walked  amongst 
the  hot  embers  of  political  passion,  and  his  gait  and  deviations 
were  of  necessity  not  uninfluenced.  It  was  not  only  that 
he  wras  concerned  to  touch  their  very  deepest  sensibilities,  but 
that  these  could  not  be  approached  at  random  or  with  uncon*- 
sidered  directness ;  according  to  circumstances  they  might  for 
the  time  be  utterly  callous  to  one  stimulus,  while  susceptible, 
as  Phrynichus  had  found,  to  exasperation  in  another.  Dis- 
tinct allusions  to  current  or  even  recent  politics  no  doubt 
appear  henceforward  resigned  to  the  less  dignified  handling 
of  the  comic  poets,  but  even  so  the  sense  of  a  present  or 
impending  crisis  can  be  recognised  in  many  cases  as  con- 
trolling the  treatment  of  a  tragic  theme. 

At  the  present  time,  to  the  stimulus  of  home  politics  was 
added  an  especial  revival  of  self-consciousness  of  achievements 
against  the  barbarian,  from  the  fame  of  another  naval  victory 

1  Arititoph.  Ran. 


xx.]  THE  TETRALOGY  OF  THE  PERSAE.  271 

over  other  barbarians  at  the  western  extremity  of  Hellas, 
achieved  by  Hiero  of  Syracuse.  His  aid  had  been  solicited  by 
envoys  from  Cumae,  which  was  threatened  by  the  Etruscans. 
He  appears  to  have  embarked  himself,  though  suffering1  at  the 
time  from  a  painful  disorder,  engaged  the  hostile  fleet  in  the 
noble  bay  within  sight  of  the  Phlegraean  fields,  and  inflicted 
a  total  defeat.  An  iron  helmet  inscribed  as  his  dedication  at 
Olympia  from  the  spoils  is  now  in  -the  British  Museum.  In 
the  same  year  he  gained  a  chariot  victory  in  the  Pythian 
games  ;  and  the  ode — one  of  his  noblest — in  which  Pindar 
celebrates  l  this,  celebrates  proudly  the  warlike  achievement 
also,  reverts  to  his  earlier  victory  at  Himera  over  the 
Phoenician,  the  Carthaginian  barbarian,  and  associates  the 
rescue  of  Hellas  here  from  impending  slavery,  with  the 
Athenian  claim  to  Hellenic  gratitude  at  Salami's  and  the 
victory  at  Plataea,  the  conquest  of  the  Dorian  spear,  below 
Cithaeron. 

The  occasion  was  most  apt  for  reviving  at  Athens  the 
memories  that  Athens  most  delighted  in,  and  events  that  had 
so  many  bearings  on  the  actually  impending  problems  of  the 
day.  The  complete  analysis  of  the  play,  and  of  the  tetralogy,  in 
reference  to  these  is  the  subject  of  a  special  dissertation,  which 
cannot  be  inserted  here  ;  but  the  results  of  the  enquiry  may 
be  given  ;  it  has  convinced  me  that  the  poet  wrote  in  no  party 
temper,  but  as  directing  enthusiasm  in  the  purest  spirit  of 
patriotism  to  the  maintenance  of  Ionian  and  Dorian  alliance 
(homai':hmia\  at  the  same  time  that  he  furthered  domestic 
harmony  by  bringing  to  mind  the  services  of  the  politician 
by  whom  this  alliance  might  seem  to  be  in  most  danger  of 
being  jeopardised. 

The  play  of  the  Persae,  then,  with  the  account  of  Salamis,  was 
introduced  by  the  '  Phineus,'  and  this  referred  to  the  previous 
and  preliminary  trial  of  Athenian  strength  with  the  Persian 

1  Pijtli.  i  ;  cf.  Pyth.  3,  and  Hyporch.  frag.  i.  3. 


272  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

at  Artemisium,  and  it  was  followed  by  the  '  Glaucus  of  Potniae,' 
a  mythical  subject  again,  but  so  treated  as  to  bear  immediately 
on  the  decisive  victory  of  Plataea,  that  is  foretold  in  the  Persae 
by  the  shade  of  Darius.  This  assertion  with  respect  to  the 
'  Phineus '  is  proved  by  comparison  of  the  tenor  of  his  mythus 
with  the  story  of  Artemisium  as  told  by  Herodotus.  Phineus, 
the  blind  king  of  Salmydessus  in  Thrace,  is  the  son-in-law  of 
Boreas, — the  north  wind, — and  of  the  Athenian  nymph 
Oreithyia,  whom  Boreas  carried  off  from  the  scene  so  cele- 
brated from  Plato's  description  and  comments  in  the  Phaedrus. 
Victim  of  the  foul  and  violent  harpies,  he  is  rescued  by  the 
winged  sons  of  Boreas,  Zetes  and  Calais,  who  drive  away  his 
tormentors,  pursuing  them  through  the  air.  Now  it  was  to 
the  same  agencies — to  the  happy  interferences  of  Boreas, 
the  north  wind,  and  on  the  same  ground  of  relationship — 
that  the  Athenians  owned  their  obligation  for  the  discomfiture 
of  the  Persian  fleet  off  the  coast  of  Magnesia  and  the  head- 
land of  Artemisium.  They  averred  that  they  had  been  bidden 
by  an  oracle  to  invoke  the  aid  of  their  son-in-law  Boreas,  who 
responded  with  such  vehement  effect  accordingly.  How  more 
exactly  and  pointedly  the  two  stories  might  be  brought 
together  by  the  poet  it  were  easy  to  conjecture ;  but  records 
fail,  and  having  now  recovered  for  the  first  time  the  leading 
import  of  the  drama,  we  may  be  better  contented  to  remain 
in  inevitable  ignorance  of  the  rest. 

It  is  much  the  same  with  the  '  Glaucus  of  Potniae.'  The 
German  critics,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much,  have  hitherto  essayed 
to  help  themselves  in  their  difficulties  here  by  substituting, 
with  perfect  arbitrariness,  another  recorded  play  of  Aeschylus, 
the  '  Glaucus  Pontieus,'  and  so  have  contrived  an  argument  that 
after  all  is  anything  but  conspicuously  plausible.  The  story 
of  Glaucus  of  Potniae  is  very  variously  told  indeed.  He  ap- 
pears sometimes  as  himself  a  daemon,  Taraxippus,  a  '  causer  of 
horse-shying,'  sometimes  as  a  hero  overthrown  by  such  accident 
in  a  chariot  race,  and — for  what  impious  offence  is  doubtful — 


xx.]  CONNECTION  OF  THE  PLAYS.  273 

torn  to  pieces  by  his  horses  maddened  by  having  been  watered 
at  a  spring-  at  Potniae.  Now  the  Potniae  of  this  mythus 
may  be  said  to  be  on  the  very  battle-field  of  Plataea ;  it  was 
passed  by  the  periegetes  Pausanias  on  his  way  from  that  city 
at  about  ten  stadia  from  Thebes, — the  actual  ground  occupied 
by  the  Persian  army  and  passed  over  by  the  pursuing  Greeks. 
The  great  services  of  the  Athenians  in  these  encounters  were 
against  the  Persian  cavalry,  which  previous  to  the  battle  had 
choked  and  ruined  the — we  may  safely  assume — sacred  fount 
Gargaphia;  and  it  is  at  least  easy  to  see  how  the  fate  of 
Masistius  and  Mardonius  on  their  Nisaean  chargers  and  the 
rout  and  carnage  of  the  mounted  Immortals  may  have  been 
brought  into  connection  with  interference  or  desecration  at 
the  maddening  waters  of  Potniae  close  to  their  encampment. 

These  combinations  are  clinched  by  the  peculiar  pertinence 
of  the  concluding  Satyric  play — the  '  Prometheus,  the  Fire- 
lighter or  Fire-bringer.'  The  advent  of  the  element  which  is 
the  type  as  the  cause  of  all  gladness,  and  purity,  and  health, 
might  happily  symbolise  the  restoration  of  Hellas  after  the 
dispersion  of  the  dark  barbarian  cloud.  It  had  a  further 
specific  appropriateness  from  the  formal  and  ceremonious 
renewal  of  pure  fire  from  Delphi,  after  the  Persian  evacuation 
and  preparatory  to  the  sacrifice  to  Zeus  Eleutherius. 

When  we  look  over  the  single  play  of  the  trilogy  that  is 
preserved  in  its  entirety,  we  find  very  distinct  characterisation 
of  the  Asiatic  lonians  and  the  European  Greeks,  especially  the 
Dorians,  and  the  Persians.  There  is  then  a  very  marked  con- 
trast effected  between  Xerxes  as  the  youthful,  over-confident, 
too-widely  grasping  inheritor  of  power,  and  the  more  wise 
and  sober  Darius.  The  contrast  is  indeed  rather  strangely 
heightened  by  the  ascription  to  Darius  of  a  moderation  in 
conquest  that  belies  the  record  of  the  Scythian  and  Thracian 
expeditions  which  he  conducted  in  person,  to  say  nothing  of 
that  which  he  despatched  under  Datis  and  Artaphernes, 
and  was  only  prevented  by  death  from  following  up  more 

T 


274  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

vigorously.  The  suppression  indeed  of  every  allusion  to 
Marathon  by  Aeschylus,  who  himself  was  a  Marathonomachus, 
might  so  far  be  understood  if  he  also  had  equal  part  at 
Salamis,  but  has  certainly  some  appearance  of  a  declining  to 
seize  an  opportunity  to  glorify  the  house  of  Cimon.  It  would 
be  in  accordance  with  such  a  feeling  of  the  poet  that  tradition 
ascribed  his  final  departure  from  Athens  to  pique  at  an  award 
of  victory  given  by  Cimon  in  favour  of  Sophocles. 

The  fundamental  moral  however  that  underlies  the  entire 
play,  and  comes  forward  into  most  definite  expression  over  and 
over  again,  is  the  perilousness  of  excessive  prosperity  as  pro- 
vocative to  fatal  insolence.  The  catastrophe  of  such  a  frame 
of  mind  is  represented  as  induced  by  the  agency  of  a  delusive 
daemon  despatched  by  the  gods,  as  if  in  envious  grudge,  to 
tempt  the  overweening  to  their  downfall.  Prosperity  doubt- 
less, even  though  most  innocently  or  most  honourably  at- 
tained, may  prove  scarcely  less  corrupting,  scarcely  less 
deluding,  than  the  achievement  of  a  course  of  violence  and 
guile,  and  its  downfall  came  thus  to  be  as  naturally  ascribed 
to  the  same  grudge  of  Nemesis  ;  the  warning  being  as  useful 
in  one  case  as  the  other.  Now  this  sense  of  awe  at  the  peril 
of  great  prosperity  was  a  commonplace  of  popular  philosophy ; 
it  is  the  leading  moral  that  is  constantly  insisted  on  in  the 
history  of  Herodotus,  and  meets  us  again  in  that  of  Thucydides 
in  the  mouth  of  the  pietist  Nicias,  who  in  deepest  disaster  has 
a  last  hope  from  the  exhaustion  of  the  fydovos  of  the  gods.  So, 
on  the  one  hand,  it  furnishes  the  prime  motive  of  the  drama, 
and,  on  the  other,  it  is  embodied  in  much  later  times  in  the 
paintings  on  the  large  Darius  vase  of  Naples.  In  the  play 
no  doubt  the  moral  is  pointed  against  national  enemies,  but 
this  would  not  blunt  it  in  its  application  to  the  consciences 
of  the  present  spectators  of  the  play.  The  elevation  of 
Athens,  the  extension  of  her  sway,  the  swelling  of  her 
revenues,  had  reached  such  pitch  so  suddenly,  that  never 
could  the  moral  of  moderation  be  more  fitly  brought  forward. 


xx.]  WARNINGS  OF  THE  POET.  275 

That  the  example  was  taken  in  the  case  of  a  conquered  enemy 
served  to  secure  a  hearing1  for  the  homily,  but  left  its  purport 
quite  as  unmistakeable.  Athens  at  the  head  of  a  confederacy 
of  numerous  allies,  that  varied  in  every  degree  of  interested- 
ness  and  loyalty,  might  take  warning  if  she  could  from  the 
fate  of  Xerxes,  induced  by  blindfold  elation  to  assume  invinci- 
bility, only  to  witness  his  motley  armament  shattered  and 
wrecked  at  collision  with  the  very  first  obstacle, — the 
derision  of  men  and  gods. 

In  this  manner  the  tragedian,  while  he  gratifies  to  the 
utmost  the  national  pride  of  the  Athenians,  appeals  even  more 
distinctly  to  the  common  Hellenic  feeling  in  memories  of  all 
the  most  glorious  Hellenic  achievements,  rewards  of  the 
united  efforts  of  Dorian  and  Ionian  by  land  and  by  sea ;  nor 
could  this  be  done  without  reviving  a  sense  of  the  merits  of 
the  commanders,  however  their  names  were  passed  over  in 
silence, — of  Themistocles  as  well  as  Aristides,  for  they  had 
been  colleagues  in  the  war,  and  colleagues  afterwards,  or 
certainly  not  rancorous  rivals,  in  the  politics  of  peace ;  nor 
could  some  sense  of  sympathy  have  been  unrevived  with 
Pausanias — his  errors  notwithstanding — with  the  victor  in 
the  last  decisive  battle,  who  was  still  lingering,  and  doomed 
so  long  to  linger,  and  to  fret,  in  obscurity,  inaction,  and 
restraint. 


T  2 


CHAPTER  XXL 

OSTRACISM   OP  THEMISTOCLES. — CIMON   AT   SCYROS. 

SINCERE  and  wise  a  political  monitor  as  Aeschylus  may 
have  been  for  the  Athenians,  he  was  not  popular  with  them 
in  this  l character;  at  best  they  left  him,  according  to  his 
own  profession,  to  dedicate  his  tragedies  to  2  Chronos — Time  ; 
they  were  quite  capable  of  divorcing  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  and  force  of  his  poetry  from  acceptance  of  its  obvious 
moral.  So  it  was  certainly  on  a  later  occasion,  and  so  it 
appears  to  have  been  on  this.  His  was  a  rugged,  because 
a  high-principled  and  a  self-reliant  nature,  and  his  con- 
sideration for  the  feeling  of  the  day  was  sufficient  to  secure 
attention  and  engage  interest,  but  did  not  prevent  him  from 
risking  administration  of  a  shock.  We  must  not  be  sur- 
prised therefore,  if  within  less  than  two  years  after  he  had 
revived  so  gloriously  for  all  the  memory  of  Salamis,  the 
Athenians  were  in  a  mood  to  forget  to  whom  they  chiefly 
owed  the  victory,  and  Themistocles  was  driven  from  the  city, 
— the  city  that  he  had  saved,  and  more  than  resuscitated, — 
an  ostracised  refugee. 

The  leaders  of  the  opposed  party  to  whom  he  owed  this 
reverse  were  Cimon  and  Alcmaeon  —  the  most  important 
among  many ;  while  Aristides,  now  advanced  in  age,  held 
himself  honourably  aloof,  whether  out  of  regard  to  the 
generosity  of  Themistocles  in  his  own  recall,  or  to  his  later 

1  Aristoph.  Kan.  Sao.  a  Athen.  p.  348  E. 


THEHISTOCLES  OSTRACISED.  277 

co-operation  with  him  as  a  colleague  in  reform.  Such  an  insti- 
tution as  ostracism — the  extrusion  of  a  citizen  from  the  state 
for  years  by  secret  ballot  upon  no  definite  charge — does  not 
carry  its  own  justification.  According  to  the  most  plausible 
apology,  it  provided  a  safeguard  available  at  short  notice, 
when  the  overgrown  influence  of  an  individual  threatened  re- 
publican institutions,  and  yet  might  countervail  all  ordinary 
legal  procedure,  or  only  give  a  hold  for  charging  treasonable 
intent  when  the  time  had  ripened  for  treason's  fatal  triumph. 
By  such  a  process  a  vague  panic,  that  might  or  might  not  be 
truly  prescient,  could  take  security  with  more  certainty  and 
more  innocently  than  by  fictitious  charges  for  the  occasion. 
In  a  less  severe  contingency  the  State  could  so  relieve  its 
active  policy  from  the  dead-lock  of  a  nearly  even  balance 
of  parties.  These  however  were  more  likely  to  be  pretexts 
for  ostracism  than  the  principles  of  its  application.  It 
offered  too  tempting  a  chance  for  the  supremacy  of  faction 
not  to  encourage  faction  ;  and  the  need  of  such  a  contrivance 
was  warning  of  constitutional  defects  that  demanded  more 
serious  remedies.  A  polity  strong  enough  to  expel  a  mischief 
in  this  manner  ought  to  be  strong  enough  to  control  it, 
strong  enough  to  keep  a  troublesome  citizen  in  subjection, 
and  Also  in  reserve  in  case  those  who  were  so  anxious  for  his 
expulsion  might  themselves,  when  exempt  from  check,  become 
still  more  troublesome.  Athens,  that  had  been  glad  to  re- 
cover the  ostracised  Aristides  just  in  time,  was  destined  at 
a  later  day  to  reverse  another  sentence,  and  be  eager  to  revert 
after  a  serious  disaster  to  the  counsels  and  services  of  Cimon  ; 
and  at  the  present  time  the  prolonged  exile  of  Themistocles 
did  not  enable  his  opponents  to  ward  off  a  crisis  which  his 
foresight  had  anticipated,  and  which  he  of  all  others  was  most 
competent  to  grapple  with. 

As  regards  the  application  of  ostracism  in  this  instance, 
nothing  more  may  be  required  to  account  for  it  than  the 
weariness  that  will  supervene  in  free  communities  of  the 


278  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

prolonged  leadership  of  even  the  most  able  and  most  suc- 
cessful single  man.  This  ensues  no  doubt  in  part  from  the 
prejudice  caused  by  ever-accumulating  secondary  lapses  and 
errors,  by  insolences  and  favouritisms,  and  then  by  misfortunes 
merely  unavoidable ;  but  it  is  also  usually  due  not  a  little  to 
the  volatility  that  would  have  change  of  tone  and  topics ; 
to  curiosity,  especially  on  the  part  of  a  new  generation,  as  to 
proof  of  untried  men  of  their  own  generation  ;  to  the  con- 
current impact  of  class  cabals  overbearing,  each  in  their  own, 
the  common  interest.  Full  force  is  lent  to  these  influences 
by  the  eagerness  of  growing  and  excluded  talent  which  fairly 
and  naturally  claims  an  opening  and  an  opportunity,  but 
of  talent  also,  new  or  old,  which  would  mount  to  power  by 
any  means,  and  can  parade  the  contrast  between  a  purity 
that  has  never  had  a  chance  of  going  wrong,  and  sagacity 
that  must  needs  be  sometimes  right  in  a  course  of  general 
denunciation ;  lastly  comes  in  that  jealousy,  the  weakness 
of  every  sovereign  power,  which  ever  looks  askance  at  the 
exceeding  prosperity  of  those  to  whom  it  owes  its  own,  and 
resents  as  an  affront  with  all  the  venom  of  vindictiveness  the 
slightest  hint  of  independence. 

In  the  latter  respect  chiefly  Themistocles  was  little  likely 
to  escape  scot-free  in  the  state  which  had  not  been  restrained 
by  either  respect  or  gratitude  for  Miltiades  and  Aristides, 
notwithstanding  the  extension  of  its  democratical  element 
in  favour  of  his  most  natural  supporters.  In  the  absence  of 
information  as  to  how  party  opposition  came  at  last  to  a 
crisis,  there  is  significance  in  the  notice  of  the  different 
temper  in  which  were  regarded  the  displays  of  wealth  that 
were  made  by  Cimon  and  Themistocles  respectively  at 
the  Olympic  games.  This  must  have  been  at  the  77th 
Olympiad  (472-71  B.C.),  the  second  recurrence  after  the 
Medica ;  for  it  could  not  have  been  in  the  year  of  the  Medica, 
and  it  was  in  the  immediately  ensuing  festival  that  Themis- 
tocles had  been  so  universally  popular.  If  we  were  held  to 


xxi.]        INDEPENDENCE  OF  THEMISTOCLES.          279 

Plutarch's  literal  words  as  to  the  youth  of  Ciraon  at  that 
time,  we  should  be  thrown  back  on  another  impossibility, 
the  74th  Olympiad,  too  early  in  the  life  of  Cimon,  too  near 
the  death  of  his  father  Miltiades  in  indigence,.  The  splendour 
of  Themistocles  in  tents,  and  hospitalities,  and  apparatus, 
was  carped  at  as  the  ostentation  of  riches,  riches  that  there 
were  too  many  to  denounce,  and  with  too  much  probability, 
as  ill-acquired  ;  belonging  moreover  to  a  new  man  :  while  in- 
dulgence was  accorded  to  Cimon,  comparatively  young  and 
of  noble  descent,  and  lavish  of  wealth  unimpeachable  in  its 
origin,  as  a  recovered  inheritance  derived  from  an  ancestry 
renowned  through  Hellas. 

It  was  not  of  the  nature,  and  probably  not  of  the  policy, 
of  Themistocles  to  dissimulate  his  conception  of  his  own 
merits  and  services  out  of  hope  to  deaden  the  inipact  of 
enviousness.  On  the  contrary,  a  tone  of  almost  perverse 
bravado  seems  to  have  characterised  both  his  private  and  his 
public  expressions.  At  the  very  time  that  the  Athenians 
were  fretting  uneasily  with  the  sense  of  obligations  exceed- 
ing their  power  of  requital,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  twit  them 
with  their  inconsistency  in  finding  benefits  burdensome  only 
because  they  happened  to  be  all  conferred  by  the  same  man. 
He  likened  a  grumbler  at  the  large  share  of  advantage  that 
he  had  secured  for  himself  to  the  day  after  a  feast,  that 
should  discontentedly  contrast  its  fare  of  orts  and  leavings 
with  the  full  provision  of  the  day  of  the  feast  itself,  that  day 
but  for  which  the  day  after  would  have  no  provender  of  any 
kind,  no  existence  at  all.  He  likened  himself  to  a  plane-tree 
to  which  the  Athenians  were  eager  to  run  for  shelter  in 
a  storm,  but,  without  gratitude  or  forethought,  despoiled  of 
its  bi*anches  at  the  first  change  to  favourable  weather.  It 
is  more  likely  to  have  been  his  observation  to  his  own  son 
Neocles  than,  as  we  read  it,  that  of  his  father  Neocles  to 
himself,  that  one  of  his  own  galleys,  open-ribbed  and  rotting 
on  the  shore,  was  a  fair  type  of  the  ultimate  regard  of 


280  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Athenians  for  their  best  servants.  Lastly,  in  days  when 
his  policy  was  being1  vigorously  impugned,  he  gave  expres- 
sion to  his  claim  to  unerring  political  insight,  by  erecting 
close  to  his  house  a  fane  that  he  dedicated  to  Artemis  Ari- 
stoboule, — Artemis  of  the  most  excellent  counsel, — perhaps 
even  by  setting  up  therein  that  statue  of  himself  which  Plu- 
tarch saw  there,  in  company  with  one  of  his  descendants,  and 
recognised  as  presenting  lineaments  justly  expressive  of  his 
heroic  nature. 

The  storm  that  he  provoked — as  probably  as  not  in  the 
conviction  that  come  it  must,  and  the  sooner  the  better  for 
his  chance  of  dealing  with  it — broke  heavily  and  with  the 
consequence  that  we  know.  His  ostracism  apparently  dates 
under  the  archonship  of  Praxiergus,  !  47 1-70  B.C.  Among 
the  means  by  which  it  was  brought  about,  we  must  not,  out 
of  deference  to  Plutarch,  who  is  given  to  idealising  his 
favourites,  be  induced  to  overlook  the  natural  tendency  of 
Cimon's  employment  of  his  wealth.  Cimon  and  Themis- 
tocles  are  both  associated  with  Pericles  as  principal  con- 
tributors to  the  decoration  of  the  city ;  but  only  in  the  case 
of  Cimon  do  we  hear  of  devotion  of  private  fortune  to  such 
public  works,  the  devotion  apparently  of  spoils  of  war  an,d 
presents  of  allies  by  which  he  might  without  positive  mal- 
versation have  added  to  his  own  riches.  Fame  at  least  told 
that  he  spent  funds  of  his  own  on  the  fortifications  of  the 
Acropolis,  and  that  he  directed,  on  the  erection  of  porticos, 
the  planting  of  shady  trees  about  the  agora,  and  the  reclaiming 
of  the  Academia  from  drought  and  sterility  by  laying  it  out 
as  a  well-watered  grove,  with  cleared  places  of  exercise  and 
shady  walks.  Others  of  his  generosities  wooed  popularity 
still  more  directly ;  he  scattered  coin  freely  among  the 
paraders  of  poverty  in  the  2  agora,  and  on  occasion  would 
bid  a  well-clothed  attendant  exchange  cloaks  with  a  citizen 

1  Diod.  xi.  54.  »  Plut.  dm.  10. 


XXL]  POPULAR  ARTS  OF  CIMON.  281 

encountered  in  a  garb  unworthy  of  his  elder  years  and 
franchise.  We  cannot  be  told  that  he  flung  down  the  fences 
of  his  gardens  and  orchards  in  order  that  the  indigent, 
whether  native  or  strangers,  might  help  themselves  to  the 
grapes  and  olives,  kept  open  house  daily  where  the  poorer 
citizens,  of  his  tribe  at  least  if  not  others,  might  daily  find  a 
modest  but  welcome  meal,  and  so  be  able  to  spare  time  from 
labour  for  public  concerns, — this  we  cannot  ponder  and  not 
bethink  ourselves  how  such  largesse  would  influence  votes; 
especially  when  contrasted  with  the  disposition  of  Themistocles, 
who  insatiate  in  getting,  was  never  extravagant  as  if  from 
irrepressible  geniality,  but  rather  out  of  the  ostentation  that 
might  astonish  but  conciliated  no  man.  By  art  then  or  by 
argument,  by  concerted  intrigue  or  as  the  result  of  conflict  on 
a  positive  question  of  policy,  Themistocles  was  ousted  from 
his  position  at  Athens  within  about  eight  years  after  the 
battle  of  Salamis,  and  had  to  consider  where  he  would  await 
and  perhaps  also  would  be  in  best  position  to  hasten  the 
reaction,  which  he  surely  counted  on  for  his  recall;  the 
independent  march  of  events  already  threatening  might 
be  quickened  by  influences  that  he  knew  how  to  set  well 
in  train,  when  not  only  would  his  foresight  be  vindicated, 
but  his  promptitude  of  resource  be  again  indispensable.  He 
retired  to  Argos,  a  state  not  in  immediate  alliance  with 
either  Sparta  or  Athens ;  with  Sparta  it  had  been  in  such 
relations  of  enmity  as  were  its  pretext  for  taking  no  part 
in  the  resistance  to  Xerxes ;  while  the  grave  suspicion 
of  Medism  under  which  it  laboured  was  a  present  bar  to 
the  sympathy  of  Athens.  Here  therefore  he  might  seem 
to  be  resident  in  a  neutral  state ;  he  was  heard  of  however, 
and  necessarily  with  interest  or  apprehension,  as  occasionally 
moving  about  in  various  directions  in  l  Peloponnesus. 

The   absence   of  Themistocles   is   naturally  signalised   by 
conspicuous  activity  on   the   part   of   Cimon.     It  is  within 
1  Thuai.  135. 


282  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

the  next  year — the  archonship  of  Demotion  (470-469  B.C.) — 
that  l  Diodorus  includes  a  series  of  his  naval  achievements 
from  Byzantium  to  the  Eurymedon  and  Cyprus,  and  adds 
to  his  inaccuracy  a  certificate  in  positive  terms,  '  Such  were 
the  actions  of  this  year.'  We  are  able  to  correct  this  chrono- 
logy on  many  points  by  better  authorities:  part  of  the 
actions  thus  find  their  place  earlier ;  the  assumption  of 
command  of  the  Byzantine  fleet  and  the  capture  of  Eion, 
as  we  have  seen ;  and  the  battle  of  Eurymedon  as  certainly 
occurred  four  years  later.  Nevertheless  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  some  special  activity  of  Cimon  at  this  time — 
the  year  after  the  exile  of  Themistocles  left  him  in  full  power — 
must  have  given  Diodorus  the  hint  to  insert  such  an  assem- 
blage of  his  doings  under  the  year.  That  it  was  not  aggres- 
sive action  against  Persia  seems  manifest  from  the  following 
years  being  unmarked  by  any  incidents  pursuant  to  such 
a  present  policy.  But  here  Plutarch  comes  to  our  aid,  who 
states  .that  it  was  in  the  very  next  year,  the  archonship  of 
Apsephion  or  Aphepsion,  that  Cimon  brought  back  to  Athens 
from  Scyros  the  relics  of  2  Theseus ;  and  of  this  assignment 
we  shall  find  very  interesting  confirmation. 

The  island  of  Scyros  lies  somewhat  by  itself  off  the  eastern, 
coast  of  Euboea ;  the  inhabitants,  who  are  specified  as  Dolo- 
pians  along  with  some  Pelasgic  3  admixture,  appear  to  have 
been  of  inferior  Hellenisation  ;  even  as  Dolopians  are  included 
in  the  Homeric  realm  of  Achilles,  but  still  only  at  its  remotest 
4  outskirts.  The  contrast  that  the  verdant  island  presents 
in  our  days  to  the  now  dry  and  naked  5  Cyclades  was  doubt- 
less not  so  marked  in  antiquity,  but  its  northern  portion 
must  always  have  been  peculiarly  susceptible  of  cultiva- 
tion, and  it  had  good  and  safe  harbours.  The  inhabitants, 
hereditarily  more  disposed  to  abuse  the  latter  advantages  than 
to  apply  to  agriculture,  made  the  neighbouring  seas  unsafe 

1  Died.  xi.  63.  »  Plut.  dm.  8.  *  Diod.  xi.  60. 

4  Iliad,  ii.  681 ;  x.  480.  *  Leake,  N.  Qretce,  Hi.  3. 


xxi.]  OCCUPATION  OF  SCYROS.  283 

by  piracy,  and  at  last — an  enormity  beyond  the  licence  of 
Homeric  days — did  not  even  spare  those  who  resorted  to  their 
shores ;  and  among  others  plundered  and  detained  some  Thes- 
salian  traders.  The  captives  escaped  and  brought  their  re- 
clamation before  the  Amphictyonic  council  which  met  alter- 
nately at  Thermopylae  and  Delphi,  and  in  which  both  the 
Thessalians  and  Dolopians  were  represented.  A  fine  was  im- 
posed, and  contention  waxed  warm  in  the  island  when  the 
authors  of  the  violence  tried  to  shift  the  mulct  from  them- 
selves on  to  the  community  at  large ;  foreseeing  failure  in 
this  scheme,  they  preferred  to  invite  the  intervention  of 
Cimon,  and  fulfilled  their  engagement  to  him  by  betrayal 
of  the  city. 

The  fleet  of  Cimon  was  probably  already  in  the  neighbour- 
hood ;  the  suppression  of  piracy  was  naturally  among  the 
duties  of  which  Athens  had  assumed  the  responsibility,  and 
might  be  prepared  to  prosecute  quite  independently  of  an 
Amphictyonic  sentence,  however  the  occasion  of  this  might 
have  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  The  acceptance  of  help 
from  the  traitor  pirates  is  quite  consistent  with  the  general 
piracy  being  the  pretext  or  occasion  of  the  severe  measures 
of  the  Athenian  commander.  He  took  entire  possession  of 
the  island,  and  disposed  of  the  inhabitants  as  l  slaves ;  un- 
fortunately not  in  itself  a  proof  that  they  were  the  barbarians 
they  are  called  by  Plutarch,  though  the  tribe  had  evidently 
little  hold  upon  public  sympathies  either  by  habits  or  re- 
lationship. 

The  clearance  of  the  island  was  preparatory  to  a  distribu- 
tion of  the  hitherto  'ill-cultivated'  lands  among  Athenian 
citizens — cleruchs  or  holders  of  allotments ;  according  to  Plu- 
tarch, this  was  the  second  benefit  of  the  kind  that  they  owed 
to  Oimon,  the  first  having  been  connected  with  the  capture 
of  E'ion,  which  agrees  with  the  interpretation  that  has  been 

1  Time.  i.  98. 


284  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

given  to  the  brief  notice  of  Thucydides.  At  the  same  time 
a  solemn  search  was  made  through  the  island  for  the  remains 
of  Theseus,  who,  according  to  tradition,  had  been  treacherously 
murdered  at  Scyros  by  King  Lycomedes.  As  Plutarch  relates 
in  his  life  of  l  Theseus,  it  was  as  early  as  the  arehonship  of 
Phaedon  (476-5  B.C.)  that  the  Delphic  oracle  had  enjoined 
the  Athenians  to  recover  these  relics  and  deposit  them 
honourably  in  their  city,  a  notice  which  has  led  to  the  con- 
quest itself  being  frequently  ante-dated.  Thucydides  has 
been  falsely  quoted  to  the  same  effect,  but  his  statement, 
though  following  on  a  paragraph  in  which  he  blames  Hel- 
lanicus  for  inaccuracy  and  negligence  in  chronology,  only 
mentions  the  capture  of  Scyros  as  subsequent  to  that  of  Ei'on, 
and  does  not  define  the  interval  either  as  long  or  short.  We 
may  be  satisfied  however  with  the  date  given  by  Diodorus 
(470-69  B.C.),  associated  as  it  is  with  whatever  blunders,  when 
we  find  it  confirmed  by  Plutarch's  account  that  the  com- 
mands of  the  oracle,  whenever  asked  for  or  given,  were 
fulfilled  in  the  ensuing  year  (arehonship  of  Apsephion  = 
469-8  B.C.). 

Pausanias  rather  awkwardly  makes  the  possession  of  the 
remains  the  condition,  not  the  consequence,  of  the  2  conquest  >. 
but  he  may  be  credited  for  his  agreement  with  the  biographer 
in  telling  how  it  was  due  to  malignant  concealment  that  the 
discovery  was  a  matter  of  difficulty  and  there  was  need  of  a 
certain  inspired  sagacity.  Such  obstacles  and  such  assistance 
have  never  failed  the  resolute  pietist  from  that  time  to  our 
own  to  embellish  the  unhoped-for  recovery  of  sacred  relics. 
The  mighty  remains  were  found,  of  course ;  they  were  re- 
cognised by  their  heroic  magnitude :  beside  them  lay  a  spear- 
head and  sword,  authenticated  by  the  bronze  material  as  of 
the  heroic  ages.  Transferred  by  Cimon  to  a  trireme  magnifi- 
cently decorated,  they  were  brought  to  Athens,  with  pomp 

1  Plut.  Tltes.  36.  *  Paus.  iii.  3.  5. 


XXL]  RELICS  OF  THESEUS  RECOVERED.  285 

and  popular  rejoicing-,  as  if  for  the  return  of  the  very  hero 
himself,  '  after  eight  hundred  years  ;'  a  satire,  if  any  cared 
to  point  the  moral,  on  the  popular  ingratitude  that  was  even 
yet  not  obsolete. 

Among  the  various  comments  that  have  been  made  on  these 
transactions,  it  seems  worth  while  to  signalise  the  following 
extract,  though  it  is  probably  more  accurately  illustrative  of 
the  genius  of  some  unpleasant  passages  of  contemporary  history, 
than  of  the  career  and  character  of  Cimon. 

'  The  whole  undertaking  which  was  so  successfully  accom- 
plished by  Cimon,'  says  a  German  historian,  '  and  which  so 
firmly  established  his  fame,  was  in  every  respect  most  oppor- 
tune for  him.  Hence  a  conjecture  naturally  suggests  itself, 
that  the  opportune  occurrence  of  its  two  causes,  viz.  the 
Delphic  oracle  and  the  complaint  of  the  Thessalians,  was 
occasioned  by  a  mutual  agreement :  in  which  case  we  should 
have  to  admire  in  Cimon  not  only  the  successful  general,  but 
also  the  statesman  possessed  of  sagacious  forethought,  and 
capable  of  exerting  a  far-reaching  influence  by  means  of  the 
combinations  at  his  l  command.' 

The  sacred  remains  found  a  resting-place  in  the  midst  of 
the  city,  close  to  what,  in  Plutarch's  time  at  least,  was  the  site 
of  the  gymnasium.  That  the  temple  which  still  remains  so 
wonderfully  preserved  is  justly  called  the  Theseum  has  never 
been  questioned  on  reasonable  grounds,  though  it  is  uncertain, 
but  uncertain  only,  whether  its  erection  dates  quite  so  early. 
The  precinct  attached  to  it  was  constituted  an  asylum  for 
household  slaves  and  other  meaner  victims  of  oppression, — 
recognition  of  an  heroic  career  of  protection  extended  to  the 
weakest.  Pausanias  indicates  the  locality  in  the  same  terms  as 
Plutarch, — '  the  hieron  of  Theseus  near  the  gymnasium  of  the 
agora  ;'  and  the  collocation  was  probably  not  uninfluenced  by 
the  national  tradition  that  to  Theseus  was  due  the  application 

1  Curtius,  History  of  Greece,  1869 ;  and  compare  Goethe,  Reineke  Fuchs, 
sub  fin. 


286  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

of  skill  to  wrestling-, — the  proper  exercise  of  the  palaestra, — 
which  had  previously  been  a  contest  of  mere  brute  *  strength. 

The  title  Theseum  is  fully  vindicated  for  the  structure  by 
the  agreement  of  the  still  existing  external  sculpture  with  the 
notice  of  2  Plutarch,  that  at  Athens  the  Theseia  and  the 
Heracleia  were  interchangeable.  The  metopes  of  the  eastern 
front  are  occupied  by  the  labours  of  Hercules,  and  those  of 
the  western  with  such  parallel  exploits  of  Theseus  as  his 
slaughter  of  the  Minotaur,  punishment  of  Skiron,  capture 
of  the  Maratbonian  bull,  and  so  forth. 

The  frieze  of  the  posticum  is  sculptured  in  high  relief  with 
the  battle  against  the  Centaurs,  in  which  Theseus  is  ever  the 
protagonist ;  the  subject  on  the  pronaos  is  more  obscure,  but 
a  battle  against  rock-hurling  antagonists  is  recognisable,  and 
it  would  seem  must  represent  a  gigantomachia  ;  and  in  that 
case  may  probably  be  the  contest  of  Hercules  against  the 
giants  of  the  isthmus  of  3  Pallene,  and  not  without  allusion 
to  the  exploits  of  Athens  and  Cimon  in  the  liberation  of  that 
region  after  the  fall  of  Ei'on. 

Pausanias  mentions  three  paintings  of  Micon  in  the  interior  ; 
two  of  the  subjects  would  be  appropriate  pendants  on  the 
opposite  lateral  walls.  One  was  the  ever- varied,  ever-repeated 
battle  of  Theseus  with  the  Centaurs,  in  which  Theseus  had 
already  killed  his  Centaur,  while  between  the  other  combatants 
victory  was  still  in  suspense ;  the  other,  the  battle  of  the 
Athenians  and  Amazons,  doubtless  included  again  an  exploit 
of  the  hero  as  antagonist  of  Antiopa  or  *Hippolyta.  The 
third  subject,  which  would  be  the  principal,  as  occupying  the 
end  wall  opposite  the  entrance,  was  partly  unfinished  by  the 
painter,  and  partly  obliterated  beyond  recognition.  The  sub- 
ject of  it — so  I  read  my  author — appears  to  have  been  the 
adventure  by  which  Theseus  vindicated  his  descent  from  the 
sea-god  Poseidon  from  the  aspersions  of  Minos,  and  ap- 

1  Paus.  i.  39.  3.  *  Plut.  The*.  35. 

*  Apollod.  i.  6.  r.  *  Plut.  The*. 


xxi.]           DECORATIONS  OF  THE  THESE UM.  287 

parently  in  the  presence  of  the  youths  and  maidens  whom  he 
had  led  to  Crete.  He  brought  back  from  the  depths  a  ring 
that  the  Cretan  had  thrown  in  to  test  him,  and  returned 
crowned  with  a  coral  wreath,  the  gift  of  Amphitrite. 

It  was  fully  in  the  manner  of  the  Greeks  to  assume  that 
the  mythical  death  of  Theseus  at  the  hands  of  King  Lycomedes 
of  Scyros  was  a  quite  available  indictment  against  successors, 
their  own  contemporaries,  even  apart  from  the  late  convictions 
for  piracy ;  but  Cimon  had  no  indirect  personal  interest  in 
this  ceremonial  re-establishment  of  Theseus  in  his  city.  To 
Theseus  was  ascribed  a  most  important  part  in  his  father's 
victory  of  Marathon  ;  the  legend  of  the  hero  told  how  he  had 
mastered  and  bound  the  destructive  bull  of  Marathon; 
in  origin  probably  it  is  a  physical  legend  of  the  regulation  of 
the  torrent  that  still  breaks  its  bonds — a  bull  being  the 
accepted  type  of  a  rushing  torrent — and  damages  agriculture 
so  far  as  it  is  at  present  carried  1  on.  The  legend  may  all  the 
same  have  reflected  at  another  time  the  conclusion  of  a  contest 
between  Attica  and  the  Marathonian  tetrapolis.  In  the  2  Poecile 
Stoa,  in  a  great"  picture  of  the  battle  of  Marathon,  Theseus 
was  shown  rising  out  of  the  earth  in  the  very  scene  of  his 
traditional  exploit  to  take  part  in  the  fight  along  with 
Hercules,  whose  fane  was  on  the  battle-field,  Athena  herself, 
and  the  eponymus  hero  Marathon. 

In  virtue  of  such  familiar  associations  it  was  that  this 
dedication  and  pompous  translation  of  relics  revived  the  glory 
of  the  earlier  and  more  peculiar  triumph  of  the  Athenians  over 
the  barbarians,  almost  as  if  in  rejoinder  to  the  trilogy  of  the 
Persae ;  and  yet  the  son  of  Miltiades,  well  warned,  and  with 
something  more  than  the  affected  modesty  of  Shakespear's 
Henry  V,  evaded  the  grudge  that  attached  to  the  self- 
asserting  inscription  of  his  father. 

It    can  only  be  thrown  out  as  a  vague  conjecture  that 

1  Leake,  Top.  Att.  2  Paus.  i.  15.  3. 


288  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Lycomedes  of  Scyros  may  have  been  connected,  traditionally 
or  invidiously,  with  the  gens  of  Athenian  Lycomidae,  or 
Lycomedae,  to  whom  Themistocles  claimed  to  be  related. 
They  were  a  priestly  race  who  administered  peculiar  initia- 
tions of  the  Great  goddesses, — of  Ge  or  Earth,  of  Koure 
Protogone, — and  sung  at  their  celebrations  hymns  of  Pamphus 
and  Orpheus ;  the  latter  few  and  short,  and  if  we  were  dis- 
posed to  take  the  word  of  Pausanias,  only  inferior  as  poems  to 
Homer's,  in  sanctity  far  '  above.  Themistocles  rebuilt  the 
ielesterion  of  the  Lycomidae  at  the  demus  Phlya  which  had 
been  burnt  by  the  Medes,  and  adorned  it  with  paintings. 
We  learn  from  a  fragment  of  Plutarch  preserved  by  Hippolytus 
on  Heresies,  that  the  mysteries  of  the  Great  goddesses  at 
Phlya  were  at  least  claimed  as  even  more  ancient  than  those 
of  the  same  goddesses  under  other  names  at  2  Eleusis. 

In  this  year  the  Parian  marble,  in  accordance  with  Plutarch, 
dates  the  first  tragic  victory  gained  by  Sophocles,  and  Plutarch 
says  over  Aeschylus,  though  he  grossly  antedates  the  retire- 
ment of  the  latter  to  Sicily  in  final  disgust  with  Athens  as 
taking  place  upon  this  occasion.  The  audience  we  are  told 
were  balanced  in  preference,  and  the  archon  Aphepsion,  with 
whom  it  rested  to  determine  judges  by  lot,  remitted  the* 
decision  instead  to  Cimon  and  his  fellow  generals,  who,  by 
coincidence  or  otherwise,  were  present  in  the  theatre  to  make 
the  formal  libations  to  the  gods;  'and  so  the  custom  ori- 
ginated of  judges  of  tragedies  being  ten  in  number,  one  from 
each  tribe  like  the  generals,  and  so  the  decision  passed  in 
favour  of  Sophocles.'  The  generals  seem  to  have  entered 
when  the  plays  were  over ;  their  judgment  must  in  this  case 
therefore  have  applied  to  an  estimate  of  voices. 

Without  committing  ourselves  to  accept  the  details  of  this 
story  in  full,  we  need  not  doubt  that  the  name  of  Cimon  was 
associated  in  some  remarkable  manner  with  this  tragic  victory 

1  Paus.  i.  22.  7;  i.  31.  4;  iv.  i.  8;  ii.  27.  2;  iz.  30.  12. 
*  Welcker,  GMterkhre,  i.  322. 


XXL]          THE  TRIPTOLEMUS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  289 

of  a  new  poet,  and  not  without  some  understanding  of  a  party 
feeling. 

The  presidency  of  the  Archon  eponymus  determines  the 
representation  for  the  greater  Dionysia  in  his  ninth  month 
(Elaphebolion),  the  spring  of  468  B.C.  The  date  corresponds 
with  that  recorded  for  the  Triptolemus  of  l  Sophocles,  a  drama 
the  few  surviving  lines  of  which  form  part  of  a  geographical 
excursus  in  the  antique  style  of  those  in  the  Prometheus, 
Persae,  and  Supplicants  of  Aeschylus.  In  this  extant  passage 
Demeter  is  describing  to  the  hero  the  various  countries  he  is  to 
visit  on  his  beneficent  errand  of  spreading  the  culture  of  bread- 
corn.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  life  of  Cimon  by  Plutarch, 
which  reads  much  as  if  it  echoed  some  earlier  comparison  of 
him  to  Triptolemus,  and  it  is  open  to  conjecture  that  the  ori- 
ginal praise  referred  less  directly  to  his  home  liberalities  than 
to  the  colonies  that  had  just  been  settled  by  him  in  what  are 
emphatically  called  the  hitherto  '  ill-cultivated }  fields  of  Scyros. 
'  The  lavish  liberality  of  Cimon/  he  says,  '  exceeded  even  the 
antique  hospitality  and  philanthropy  of  the  Athenians  ;  for 
they  communicated  to  the  Greeks,  what  the  city  justly  is 
proud  of,  the  seed  (corn)  of  food,  and  taught  mankind  the 
use  of  spring  water  and  the  art  of  lighting  fire  ;  but  he  made 
his  house  a  common  prytaneum  for  the  citizens,  and  by  free 
communication  of  the  best  and  rarest  produce  of  his  land 
seemed  to  bring  back  in  a  manner  the  fabled  communistic 
state  of  the  time  of  '2  Cronus.' 

It  seems  characteristic  of  the  prompt  succession  of  genius 
in  these  Athenian  years,  that  the  date  of  the  first  entrance  of 
Pericles  into  politics  is  calculated  to  be  almost  coincident 
with  the  death  of  Aristides.  It  is  only  by  such  reckoning, 
not  by  any  historical  record  of  his  earlier  participation  in 
in  affairs,  that  the  fact  is  known.  His  father  Xanthippus  has 
been  missed  from  story  since  the  victory  of  Mycale.  It  was 

1  Plin.  II.  N.  xviii.  7.  2  Pint,  dm,  10. 


290  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

probably  another  member  of  his  family,  Alcmaeon,  who  along 
with  Cimon  pressed  forward  the  ostracism  of  lThemistoclea ; 
and  it  was  the  son  of  Alcmaeon,  Leobotes,  who  in  concert  with 
the  Laconising  party  and  agents,  would  afterwards  have  sub- 
stituted for  admonitory  ostracism  either  the  severer  penalty 
of  exile  and  consequent  forfeiture  of  estate,  or,  even  more 
eagerly,  that  of  death.  Eleven  years  had  elapsed  since 
Salamis,  and  a  generation  was  come  to  maturity  which  had 
grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  enthusiasm,  and  regarded 
national  progress  as  a  law  of  nature.  Some  great  names  of 
the  past  were  still  remaining,  vigorous  and  even  progressive 
still  both  in  politics  and  arts ;  but  the  men  who  were  now 
coming  into  prominence  had  purposes  and  projects  of  their 
own,  for  which  all  that  had  been  done  was  mere  preparation, 
and  were  urged  by  an  unresting  consciousness  of  power  within 
to  claim  an  immediate  share  in  the  guidance  of  national 
energies  worthy  of  and  demanding  their  best  services. 

It  must  have  been  about  this  time,  possibly  this  year, 
that  the  death  of  Aristides  occurred ;  at  a  time  when,  for 
whatever  cause,  he  appears  to  have  so  far  withdrawn  from 
active  politics  that  his  departure  involved  no  such  change 
as  to  make  a  record  of  it  inevitable.  Later  writers,  whilst 
recording  the  fact  that  he  left  neither  portions  for  his 
daughters  nor  enough  money  for  his  funeral  expenses,  contrast 
this  so-called  honourable  poverty,  and  the  sordid  poverty  of 
his  descendants,  with  the  worldly  wisdom  of  Themistocles, 
the  appropriate  rewards  of  which  were  enjoyed  by  himself 
to  the  last,  and  transmitted  to  his  descendants  through  long 
generations.  '  The  Seven  against  Thebes '  of  Aeschylus  is 
dated  as  produced  under  the  next  archon,  Theagenides, 
and  an  anecdote  exists  to  the  effect  that  the  line  in  which 
the  poet  characterises  Amphiaraus  as  '  one  who  seeks  not  to 
seem  but  to  be  really  just'  was  greeted  enthusiastically  by 

1  Plut.  Aristid.  25. 


xxi.]  THE  LAST  OF  ARISTIDES.  291 

the  audience  as  applicable  to  Aristides.  The  story  comes  off 
but  haltingly  unless  the  application  can  be  understood  as 
extending  to  the  general  context,  which  would  distinctly 
imply  that  the  merits  of  Aristides  were  in  marked  contrast  to  . 
the  unworthiness  and  unpopularity  of  his  recent  colleagues. 
An  Athenian  audience  is  not  to  be  lightly  charged  with  the 
inept  perversity  of  catching  at  the  terms  of  a  single  expres- 
sion without  completely  apprehending  its  drift  and  purport. 
If  we  are  to  accept  the  anecdote  at  all,  we  must  take  it  as  an 
expression  of  regretful  condemnation  of  a  once  esteemed  and 
even  venerated  favourite  who  had  recently  been  found  on  the 
wrong,  that  is  on  the  then  unpopular,  side.  This  may  well 
have  been  the  case  if,  during  the  recent  unpopularity  of 
Themistocles  which  resulted  in  his  ostracism,  Aristides  had 
held  aloof  from  the  persecution, — still  more  if  he  had  loyally 
remained  by  the  side  of  one  with  whose  character  his  own  was 
so  contrasted,  but  with  whom,  though  once  in  rivalry,  he  had 
co-operated  frankly  in  imperial  organisation  and  domestic 
1  reform. 

Concurrent  possibly  with  these  transactions,  but  certainly 
concluded  later,  was  a  war  with  Carystus  in  Euboea — under 
conduct  of  what  commander  is  not  mentioned.  Carystus  was 
Dryopian,  and  it  is  therefore  fair  to  conjecture  that  the  quarrel 
was  connected  with  the  arbitrary  treatment  of  Scyros.  When 
Datis  and  Artaphernes  had  moved  from  Delos  upon  Athens 
and  Eretria,  Carystus  had  gallantly  refused  to  surrender 
hostages  or  to  take  part  in  hostilities  against  her  neighbour 
cities,  but  was  forced  to  give  way  to  positive  pressure.  It 
was  probably  due  to  the  continued  influence  of  a  Medising 
party  then  placed  in  power  that  the  city  became  liable  to  the 
penalties  for  which,  as  we  have  seen,  it  had  already  in  vain 
attempted  to  compound  by  bribes  to  Themistocles.  Strength 
of  position  that  enabled  it  to  resist  2  then,  as  it  had  previously 

1  Plutarch;  Comparison  of  Aristides  and  Cato,  iii.  5.         *  Hes.  viii.  112. 

U   2 


292  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

encouraged  resistance  to  the  Mede,  enabled  it  to  hold  out 
again,  although  unsupported  by  other  Euboean  cities  even 
of  the  same  Dryopian  kinship.  The  besiegers  had  to  lament 
some  losses ;  here  died  Hermolycus,  who  deserved  best  of 
all  the  Athenians  at  *  Mycale ;  but  the  defence,  however 
prolonged  by  2  obstinacy,  was  hopeless  of  ultimate  success ; 
it  ended  in  a  capitulation,  and  the  story  brings  us  upon  the 
Carystians  later  3on  as  duly  contributory  to  i\\e  phoros. 

1  Herod,  tx.  105.  2  Thuc.  i.  99.  s  Ib.  vii.  57. 


CHAPTEE    XXII. 

PAINTING,    RUDIMENTARY   AND   ADVANCED. — POLYGNOTUS. 

IT  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  the  art  of  painting  had 
not  as  worthy  and  as  remote  an  antiquity  among  the  Greeks 
as  sculpture  ;  yet  the  almost  entire  absence  of  record  of  great 
works  in  this  art,  and  of  great  names  anterior  to  the  age  of 
Cimon  and  his  friend  Polygnotus,  is  in  striking  contrast  both 
to  the  traditional  and  the  authenticated  records  respecting 
works  in  metal  and  marble.  Such  difference  no  doubt  does 
but  represent  in  a  general  way  the  relative  unimportance  of 
painting  throughout  the  whole  development  of  Greek  art. 
There  is  no  account  of  the  production  by  Greek  painting, 
even  when  at  its  highest  technical  perfection,  of  works  that 
could  range  in  dignity  and  scope  with  the  great  compositions  of 
Alcamenes  and  Polycletus,  not  to  say  of  Pheidias ;  the  pictures 
in  fact  that  come  nearest  to  this  standard  are  those  of 
Polygnotus,  almost  the  very  first  of  which  we  have  any 
distinct  account,  and  these  are  too  near  the  transition  from 
earliest  rudimentary  forms  to  have  a  chance  of  reaching  it. 
It  is  possible  that  the  application  of  colour  to  the  great 
chryselephantine  statues  of  gods  and  goddesses  and  to  their 
ornamental  accompaniments  had  in  a  certain  degree  the  effect 
of  superseding  the  rivalry  of  painting ;  as  indeed  the  very 
perfection  of  sculpture  might]  seem  to  render  such  rivalry 
hopeless.  The  conditions  were  the  reverse  of  those  which 
controlled  the  great  development  of  Italian  art,  when  even 


294  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Buonarroti,  the  greatest  modern  genius  for  sculpture,  re- 
nounced the  chisel  under  the  force  of  circumstances,  in  order 
to  embody  his  sublimest  conceptions  by  what  was  to  him  the 
less  congenial  pencil.  The  principle  of  the  variegation  of 
sculpture  may  be  recognised  even  on  the  Homeric  shield 
of  Achilles,  where  many  figures  and  objects  which  were 
wrought  in  metal,  and,  as  must  be  supposed,  in  relief,  are 
distinguished  either  by  symbolical  or  by  apt  local  colours. 
The  gods  Pallas  and  Ares  are  golden  and  clad  in  golden 
armour;  and  Fate,  as  she  drags  along  the  bodies  of  the 
slaughtered,  has  a  garment  dabbled  with  the  gore  of  men ; 
the  furrows  are  represented,  'a  marvel  of  art,'  as  black- 
ening behind  the  ploughs ;  black  clusters  of  grapes  hang 
from  vines  supported  by  silver  props;  the  watery  moat  of 
the  vineyard  is  azure,  the  fence  that  encloses  it  is  of  tin; 
the  colours  of  the  oxen  are  diversified  by  gold  and  tin,  and 
the  dancing  youths,  dressed  in  delicate  glistening  chitons, 
have  swords  of  gold  pendent  from  silver  baldrics.  For 
other  distinct  applications  of  colour  in  Homer,  there  is 
little  to  refer  to,  beyond  the  ships'  sides  painted  red,  and 
the  ornamental  staining  of  ivory  by  Carian  women ;  but 
there  can  be  little  hesitation  in  inferring  that  the  battles 
of  Greeks  and  Trojans,  that  Helen  occupies  herself  in 
working,  were  conceived,  and  intended  to  be  conceived,  as 
made  out  in  diversified  and  appropriate  colours.  The  em- 
broideries of  Phoenicia,  Babylon,  or  Assyria  are  of  a  far 
remoter  date,  and  in  fact  allusion  is  made  to  the  possession 
of  Sidonian  l  specimens. 

In  times  far  earlier  than  Greek  legend  even  pretends  to 
refer  to,  drawing  in  outline  and  painting  in  flat  tints  at 
least  had  been  in  vogue  both  in  Assyria  and  Egypt,  and 
some  of  their  advanced  applications  might  have  been  first 
borrowed  directly  from  those  sources  by  the  Greeks  at  any 

1  Iliad,  vi.  289. 


xxii.]  HOMERIC  COLOURED  DESIGN.  295 

time,  and  taken  as  starting-points  for  further  progress  and 
improvement.  It  is  however  quite  consistent  with  historical 
experience,  that  a  nation  which  is  endowed  with  capacity 
for  an  independent  start,  will  not  easily  resign  a  first  in- 
tention even  for  the  benefit  of  something  better  that  is  to 
be  obtained  by  borrowing,  but  rather  pursues  pertinaciously 
its  own  first  idea;  and  when  it  borrows  at  all,  and  even  when 
it  borrows  freely,  does  so  less  by  adopting  what  is  alien, 
than  by  associating  and  assimilating  it  almost  beyond  recog- 
nition. Even  at  the  present  time,  for  all  the  ease  and  rapidity 
of  travel  and  transport  and  communication,  the  thought 
of  modern  Europe  developes  for  the  most  part  in  parallel 
lines;  and  not  only  art  and  philosophy,  but  even  the  sciences, 
struggle  in  every  country  to  continue  national,  and  would 
fain  assert  hereditary  rather  than  theoretical  succession.  The 
Greeks,  especially,  loved  to  consider  all  arts  and  sciences  as 
having  originated  independently  amongst  themselves ;  in 
their  case,  if  ever,  a  very  excusable  mistake  and  not  un- 
natural boast,  for  never  was  there  a  race  that  more  positively 
subjected  all  borrowings  to  their  individual  genius. 

Certain  incidents  and  epochs  of  the  art  of  painting  occur 
in  scattered  mention  as  anterior  to  Polygnotus ;  and  some 
such,  even  many  such,  there  doubtless  must  have  been ;  but 
the  notices  are  vague  and  questionable,  and  wanting  in 
detailed  individuality  and  historical  certitude,  and  seem  for 
the  most  part  merely  contrived  to  eke  out  the  customary 
statement  of  progressive  development  by  a  succession  of 
inventors.  A  list,  however  full,  of  names  of  unknown  or 
un characterised  artists,  goes  for  nothing ;  and  it  is  much 
if  we  can  occasionally  identify  agreement  of  the  traditions 
with  something  more  than  mere  general  probabilities,  and 
connect  them  consistently  with  seats  of  the  art  in  later 
days. 

The  black  figures  upon  red  ground  of  the  earliest  vases 
represent   the   skiagraphia,   the   production    of    monochrome 


296  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

drawings  by  the  aid  of  shadows ;  and  this  is  given  as  the 
earliest  form  of  the  art  of  painting  as  practised  at  S  icy  on 
and  Corinth  and  Samos.  So  Saurias  of  Samos  was  said  to 
have  delineated  a  horse  after  the  shadow  cast  by  sunlight, 
and  the  daughter  of  Dibutades  at  Corinth  the  profile  of  her 
lover  after  the  shadow  thrown  by  artificial  light.  On  the 
vases  the  delineation  of  figures  in  black  on  lighter  ground 
is  helped  by  interior  lines  scratched  with  a  sharp  point 
through  the  dark  paint,  and  it  is  noted  as  a  further  advance 
when  interior  lines  were  introduced  in  the  monochrome 
paintings.  The  incised  line  is  sometimes  employed  to  give 
exactness  of  definition  even  to  the  proper  outlines  or  contours 
of  the  black  figures.  With  this  aid  and  no  more,  groups 
of  very  considerable  complication  are  rendered  perfectly  dis- 
tinct,— as  for  instance  the  four  horses  of  a  chariot  very 
slightly  advanced  beyond  each  other,  the  attendants  beside 
and  beyond  them,  the  warrior  in  the  chariot ;  at  the  same 
time  very  considerable  taste  is  exercised  in  securing  so  much 
definition  of  the  forms  by  free  outline,  as  not  to  throw  the 
main  balance  of  responsibility  on  the  interior  incised  lines. 
The  practice  of  some  of  the  earlier  vase-painters,  of  inscribing 
not  only  the  names  of  persons  represented, — 'Achilles'  or 
'  Ajax/ — but  also  of  objects  that  perfectly  and  even  excellently 
explain  themselves,  such  as  'a  fountain,'  'ahydria,'  'a  seat,' 
at  least  explains  the  origin  of  the  tradition  that  the  earliest 
paintings  were  so  rude,  that  man  or  horse  or  tree  were 
undistinguishable  without  such  written  hint  and  aid.  That 
such  aid  was  ever  really  required,  and  thence  survived  by 
habit  after  the  necessity  had  gone  by,  is  hard  to  think ;  the 
application  of  determinatives  in  hieroglyphics  is  a  proof  how, 
in  the  earliest  times,  it  was  painting  that  came  to  the  aid 
of  syllabic  writing  rather  than  the  reverse. 

In  the  next  stage  of  vase-painting,  the  figures  •  are  red 
upon  a  black  ground;  or  rather  they  are  made  out  by 
the  proper  red  ground  of  the  vase  being  left  untouched 


xxii.]  PAINTING  AND   VASE-PAINTING.  297 

within  their  outlines  and  painted  black  without  and  around 
them;  the  incised  line,  being-  no  longer  applicable  for  the 
interior,  is  now  superseded  by  painted  black  lines ;  the  colour 
of  the  vase  supplies  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  local 
colour  of  the  nude.  So  Dibutades  of  Corinth  was  said  to 
have  modelled  in  clay  the  face  of  his  daughter's  lover,  upon 
the  outline  she  had  drawn,  and  added  artificial  red  to  the 
material ;  and  Cleophantus  of  Corinth  to  have  filled  up 
outline  drawings  with  a  red  colour  obtained  by  pounding 
terra  cotta. 

When  the  vase-painter  laid  down  the  pointed  tool  to  take 
to  the  brush  exclusively,  he  had  already  acquired  command 
of  hand  in  drawing ;  and  very  refined  delineation  and  beau- 
tiful lines  are  often  found  associated,  however  strangely  at 
variance,  with  the  rude  principle  of  the  process.  The  new 
process  was  soon  eager  to  prove  its  own  independent  powers ; 
and  preferred  to  continue  even  more  strictly  monochrome 
than  that  which  it  superseded,  renouncing  some  approaches 
that  had  already  been  made  with  the  black  figures  to  the 
application  of  local  colour,  in  arms  and  ornaments.  The 
distinguishing  of  female  figures  by  white  faces  and  flesh, 
which  had  been  in  truth  less  an  advance  to  proper  local 
colour  than  a  supplement  in  the  way  of  symbolism,  was 
given  up  along  with  irrational  inscriptions,  as  not  only 
unnecessary,  but  obsolete.  At  this  stage  the  Greek  was 
w*ell  content  for  ceramic  painting  to  make  a  long  halt, 
until  it  had  perfected  a  style  appropriate  to  its  application 
and  opportunities ;  it  is  simple,  free,  and  refined,  but  with 
no  affectation  of  an  exactness  which  must  invariably  have 
failed  in  a  process  by  its  nature  excluding  not  only  palliation 
of  pentimenti,  but,  much  more,  their  correction. 

Eumarus  of  Athens  and  Cimon  of  Cleonae  are  names 
associated  by  Pliny  with  improved  skill  and  daring  in 
draughtsmanship, — both  of  uncertain,  but  by  manifest  im- 
plication of  very  early  dates ;  for  to  Eumarus  is  assigned 


298  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

renown  for  his  success  in  distinguishing  male  and  female 
figures,  as  well  as  his  bold  imitation  of  varied  l  attitudes. 
Cimon  is  credited  with  the  further  advancement  of  these 
feats,  by  venturing  to  represent  foreshortened  2figures,  and 
presentations  of  the  countenance  in  varied  aspects — looking 
back,  upwards,  or  downwards ;  the  expression  of  joints  and 
veins,  more  probably  muscles ;  and,  very  important  indeed, 
the  folds  and  waves,  the  arranged  or  accidental  convolutions, 
of  drapery.  Here  again  we  may  trace  upon  the  vases  a 
parallel  advance  in  the  direction  of  elegance  and  nature, 
from  the  stiff  and  formal  draperies  of  the  archaic  style, 
neither  swayed  by  air  nor  swung  by  movement,  nor  indi- 
cating, by  apparent  capacity  to  sink  or  swell,  the  natural 
modelling  of  the  limbs  3  beneath.  If  these  innovations  could 
really  be  brought  home  to  the  name,  Cimon  of  Cleonae — an 
Homeric  dependency  of  Mycenae — would  justly  rank  as  one 
of  the  best  deserving  masters  in  the  history  of  art. 

The  historical  notices  thus  far  refer  less  to  painting  proper 
than  to  simple  draughtsmanship,  which  has  however,  at  least 
in  the  case  of  bas-relief,  an  equally  direct  application  to 
sculpture.  It  is  only  when  we  reach  Polygnotus  that  we 
encounter  hints  of  the  proper  glories  of  painting,  for  even, 
his  father  Aglaophon  has  no  verified  claim  beyond  standing 
on  the  record  as  instructor  of  his  son. 

Polygnotus  wras  of  the  wealthy  island  of  Thasos,  and  his 
date  is  fixed  generally  by  his  known  relations  to  Cimon 
and  to  Elpinice,  before  she  was  quite  so  old  as  Pericles 
thought  her  in  463-2  B.C.  The  inscription  for  his  Delphic 
picture  is  ascribed  to  Simonides,  who  died  four  years  earlier, 
Ol.  78.  2=467-6  B.C.,  and  gives  perhaps  a  more  precise 
date.  The  picture  was  executed  by  him  for  the  Cnidians ; 
his  friend  Cimon  was  at  Cnidus  before  the  battle  of  the  Eury- 
medon  466-5  B.C.,  but  as  this  was  in  the  next  year  after  the 

1  Figurac  omntt.  Pliny,  xixv.  34.       *  Catayrapha,  cbliqiwu  imaginef.  Ib. 
»  Cf.  Aelian,  F.  II.  viii.  8. 


xxn.]  THE  EPOCH  OF  POLYGNOTUS.  299 

death  of  Simonides,  the  inference  appears  to  be  that  this 
dedication  of  the  Cnidians  was  anterior  to  their  participation 
in  the  spoils  of  Eurymedon.  We  are  thus  thrown  upon  an 
earlier  date  for  the  motive  and  occasion  of  the  picture, — 
to  the  days  immediately  after  the  liberation  of  the  Ionian 
cities  and  of  Thasos  from  the  Persians,  and  the  time  of  the 
transactions  of  Cimon  with  the  Amphictyons  at  Thermopylae, 
relatively  to  Scyros,  476  B.C. 

Again,  Polygnotus  decorated  with  paintings  the  Theseum, 
which  received  the  bones  of  the  hero  about  469-8  B.C.  As 
regards  the  style,  modes,  and  manner  of  Polygnotus,  Pliny 
states  that  he  painted  the  drapery  of  his  female  figures 
as  transparent ;  and  Lucian  has  a  reference  to  the  delicacy 
with  which  he  depicted  it  as  either  gathered  naturally  in 
folds  or  fluttering  in  the  wind;  Aelian  is  another  authority 
to  the  same  effect.  ]  Cicero  names  him  as  one  of  the 
painters  who  employed  only  four  colours,  of  which  one 
was  2  black ;  a  simplicity  for  which,  as  it  seemed  to  Quin- 
tilian,  it  could  only  be  affectation  to  profess  admiration. 
Criticism  therefore  it  seems  was  already  known  in  antiquity, 
to  be  given  to  assert  peculiar  insight,  to  be  jealous  of 
the  claims  of  beauty  that  condescended  to  be  manifest  to 
unsophisticated  taste,  or  even  that  reposed  on  the  best  judg- 
ments of  the  past,  and  preferred  to  announce  a  revelation 
of  it  where  it  must  needs  be  a  mystery  to  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  better  critics  however,  it  is  most  certain,  did 
not  err  in  their  lo'fty  estimate  of  the  art  of  Polygnotus, 
restricted  as  were  his  appliances.  Nor  were  his  resources 
in  respect  of  colour  too  narrow  to  admit  of  great  variety. 
That  he  was  liberal  in  the  variegation  of  feminine  head- 
dresses is  an  unimportant  matter ;  more  to  the  purpose 
are  the  notices  that  he  did  not  content  himself  with  flat 
uniform  tints,  but  compassed  gradations  both  of  tints  and 

1  Brut.  18.  2  Plin.  xxxiii.  12;  xxxv.  6. 


300  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

tone,  and  so  made  the  first  and  all-important  advance  beyond 
monochrome.  He  painted  fishes  as  seen  indistinctly  in  the 
dark  waters  of  Acheron ;  the  vast  and  mutilated  form  of 
Tityus  in  Hades  was  mysteriously  obscure;  the  daemon 
Eurynomus  was  coloured  like  the  flesh-flies;  the  wrecked 
Oilian  Ajax  was  recognised  with  his  sea  stains  about  him  ; 
the  cheeks  of  the  abused  Cassandra  bore  the  tender  blush 
of  her  situation. 

As  regards  expression,  the  blush  of  Cassandra  was  in 
harmony  with  the  beauty  of  her  l  brows.  And  his  Polyxena 
was  praised  still  more  enthusiastically;  he  gave  movement 
to  lips,  exposed  teeth,  relieved  physiognomy  from  archaic 
rigidity ;  he  represented  the  tender,  the  pathetic,  the  im- 
pulsive, the  reserved,  the  heroic. 

Hence  Polygnotus  is  to  Aristotle  the  ethical  2  painter, — 
the  ethical  artist  indeed  as  compared  either  with  sculptors 
or  painters,  especially  as  compared  in  his  own  art  with 
Pauson  and  3Zeuxis.  Polygnotus,  says  Aristotle,  exceeded 
reality  in  his  representation  of  man,  Pauson  fell  below  it, 
Dionysius  was  on  the  same  level. 

We  have  most  happily  a  detailed  description  by  Pau- 
sanias  of  his  great  paintings  in  the  Lesche,  or  public  apart- 
ment for  conversation,  at  Delphi,  the  work  already  referred 
to  which  he  executed  for  the  citizens  of  Cnidus.  Like  so 
many  of  the  early  Italian  painters,  and  under  the  same 
influence  of  requirement  to  cover  large  architectural  spaces 
with  subjects  that  could  not  appropriately  be  disconnected 
with  each  other,  he  had  very  large  views  of  composition, 
both  as  within  each  separate  picture  and  as  demanding 
certain  connections  and  contrasts  of  one  picture  with  another. 
In  such  early  combinations  we  constantly  find  a  well-marked 
gradation  in  associated  dignities,  so  that  a  subordinate  sub- 
ject supports  a  principal,  whether  the  secondary  subject  be 

1  Lucian,  Imayy.  7.        a  Ariut.  Poet.  vi.  15  ;  Polit.  viii.  5.        *  Ib.  Poet.  ii.  a. 


xxn.]  POLYGNOTUS  AT  DELPHI.  301 

introductory  or,  as  more  frequently,  a  sequel,  or  as,  perhaps 
with  equal  frequency,  with  no  pragmatical  interdependence, 
but  an  ideal  antitype. 

The  subjects,  disposed  on  opposite  walls,  to  right  and  left  of 
the  entrance,  were  the  Capture  of  Troy  and  Departure  of  the 
Greeks  on  the  right ;  and  on  the  other  side,  scenes  in  Hades, 
including  the  descent  of  Ulysses  to  consult  Teiresias.  The 
figures  in  each  were  very  numerous — as  many  indeed  as 
seventy — but  disposed  in  groups  of  considerable  independence, 
so  that  the  picture  might  seem  made  up  of  a  system  of  groups 
in  separate  though  not  harshly  disconnected  scenes.  Names 
were  inscribed  in  archaic  fashion,  in  one  case  even  a  collective 
description  is  added — '  The  Uninitiated/  I  have  given  l  else- 
where a  detailed  exposition  of  these  pictures,  group  by  group 
and  indeed  figure  by  figure,  with  illustrative  restorations  for 
which  the  account  of  Pausanias  gives  inviting  opportunity. 
The  aim  at  symmetry  is  very  marked  in  particular  groups,  and 
still  more  so  in  their  general  correspondence  with  each  other ; 
in  one  degree  less  formally  than  in  the  Aeginetan  pediments, 
but  still  as  decidedly  in  intention.  In  each  case  we  see  that 
grace  and  variety  are  superinduced  upon  a  sublying  arrange- 
ment as  orderly  as  a  pattern,  and  always  more  or  less  dis- 
cernible, but  not  least  happy  in  effect  when  least  conspicuous  ; 
even  as  the  disorder  of  fluttering  drapery  owes  its  gracefulness 
considerably  to  the  occult  but  still  regulative  fact  that  it  is 
order  in  disturbance. 

Disconnected  as  the  several  groups  might  be  in  action,  a 
very  considerable  breadth  of  effect  was  compassed  in  general 
composition,  and  that  in  spite  of  the  still  further  difficulty 
that  the  groups  were  in  rows,  two,  three,  or  even  more,  one 
above  another,  and — at  least  so  far  as  appears — without  either 
perspective  diminution  or  continuous  landscape.  The  practice 
of  the  Apulian  vase-painters,  although  at  a  considerably  later 

1  Falkener's  Jfuseum  of  Classical  Antiquities. 


302  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

date,  may  be  taken  as  exemplifying  the  conventions  of  this 
style  of  painting,  where  disgrace  of  failure  was  precluded  by 
limitation  of  what  was  attempted  ;  the  vase-painters  judi- 
ciously recognising  the  need  of  the  limitation  in  their  own 
case  long  after  painting  in  the  larger  sense  had  as  wisely 
asserted  its  emancipation.  In  the  Capture  of  Troy  the 
central  portion  exhibited  the  ruthless  prosecution  of  the 
slaughter  by  Neoptolemus,  the  demolition  of  the  walls,  and 
the  Greek  chiefs  in  council  on  the  subject  of  an  act  of 
sacrilegious  violence  by  one  of  their  number  during  the 
sack.  These  groups  were  flanked  on  one  side  by  the  heaps 
of  slain,  the  burials  in  progress,  the  spared  Trojans  preparing 
for  retirement  inland ;  on  the  other  by  more  important  groups 
of  wounded  and  captives,  and  Greeks  preparing  to  embark 
with  recaptured  Helen  and  spoil. 

The  groups  of  this  wing  of  the  composition  are  more 
weighty  and  numerous  than  those  of  the  other,  and  were 
made  so  not  without  artistic  design ;  it  is  thus  intimated 
that  the  first  long  composition  is  not  complete  in  itself  but 
demands  a  sequel, — found  in  fact  in  the  opposite  picture, — 
which  concludes,  as  this  commences,  with  a  more  impressive 
mass  of  groups.  The  subjects  are  thus  not  only  paired  anti- 
thetically, but  knit  together  as  one  in  general  intention  by 
common  reference  to  terminal  inclusions,  commencing  the 
first,  concluding  the  last. 

In  the  second  subject,  the  general  scene  is  indicated  most 
emphatically,  no  longer  by  the  central  but  by  the  terminal 
groups  ;  giving  correlative  representations  of  the  punishment 
of  the  irreligious  and  impious — Tantalus,  the  Danaids,  Sisyphus 
at  one  end  ;  Tityus,  the  parricidal  and  sacrilegious  man,  at  the 
other.  The  intermediate  space,  in  contrast  to  the  first  picture, 
has  no  central  compartment,  but  is  divided  by  a  comparatively 
blank  central  space  between  two  lateral  systems,  each  in  sym- 
metry at  once  independent  and  contrasted.  These  intermediate 
combinations  are  formed  of  groups  of  heroes  and  heroines,  of 


xxii.]        ARCHAIC  PICTORIAL  COMPOSITION.  303 

the  Homeric  period  chiefly,  represented  as  occupants  of  the 
underworld. 

It  was  by  an  oversight  that,  in  rearranging-  the  groups 
of  Riepenhausen,  I  missed  the  necessity  for  another  capital 
modification,  and  failed  to  reverse  the  sequence  of  groups  in 
the  second  picture.  Pausanias  goes  through  the  subjects  in 
order,  beginning  on  his  right  as  he  entered  the  building ;  but 
when  he  reached  the  end  of  one  wall  he  naturally  and  pro- 
perly enough  passed  over  to  the  corresponding  end  of  the 
opposite  wall,  and  so  worked  back  towards  the  entrance. 
The  relative  collocation  of  figures  as  opposite  to  each  other  is 
therefore  represented  falsely  by  a  drawing  which  follows  the 
enumeration  as  if  both  series  commenced  at  the  same  end  of 
the  building. 

It  surprises  us  at  first  to  find  that  pictures  dedicated  at  Delphi 
can  be  so  entirely  without  allusion  to  Apollo,  the  peculiar  god 
of  this  most  sacred  locality;  but  the  solution  of  the  difficulty, 
though  it  carries  us  into  remote  associations,  is  complete,  and 
is  a  most  remarkable  exemplification  of  the  retentiveness  of 
Hellenic  memory  for  tribal  connections.  Religious  allusion 
is  not  and  could  not  be  omitted,  but  it  refers  to  the  worship 
not  of  Apollo,  but  of  divinities  whom  his  splendour  might 
have  obscured  but  was  powerless  to  obliterate, — to  the  Pelasgic 
worship  of  the  powers  of  earth  and  of  the  underworld,  whose 
seat  he  invaded,  and  only  occupied  at  last  by  a  compromise 
and  alliance  such  as  he  himself  afterwards  had  to  concede  to 
Dionysus.  The  Amphictyons  who  met  at  Delphi  also  as- 
sembled on  alternate  occasions  at  Thermopylae,  at  the  temple 
of  Demeter ;  and  the  worship  of  Demeter  was  most  affected  by 
those  earlier  colonists  of  Cnidus  who,  starting  from  the 
neighbouring  coasts,  had  again  transmitted  the  worship  from 
their  new  seats  to  new  colonies,  and  to  times  far  later  than 
those  we  are  now  dealing  with. 

I  have  pursued  this  subject  in  detail  in  my  historical  illus- 
trations of  Pindar's  Sicilian  Odes. 


304  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Thus  is  accounted  for  the  introduction,  that  might  other- 
wise seem  intrusive  here,  of  reference  by  typical  incidents  and 
inscriptions  to  the  rites  and  initiations  of  Demeter.  The 
Danaids  are  inscribed  as  contemners  of  her  mysteries,  and  her 
Thasian  priestess  Cleoboia  crosses  the  Acheron  holding  her 
sacred  cista. 

The  episode  of  Ulysses,  who  consults  Teiresias  as  to  his  safe 
return  to  Ithaca,  connects  the  subject  of  this  picture  with  that 
of  the  sack  of  Troy  and  departure  of  the  Greeks.  The  suc- 
cessful issue  of  the  Trojan  war  meets  us  again  and  again  at 
this  time,  as  an  adopted  mythical  prototype  of  the  recent 
victories  over  the  Asiatic  host  of  Xerxes,  and  was  probably 
intended  to  be  understood  so  here.  At  the  same  time  the 
predominant  sentiment  of  the  designs  is  the  inculcation  of 
moderation  in  victory,  especially  in  the  matter  of  respect  for 
sanctities  and  sanctuaries.  Neoptolemus,  who  had  a  tradi- 
tional ill-name  for  sacrilege  at  Delphi,  is  conspicuous  here  for 
regardless  blood-thirst ;  and  the  central  subject  of  all  is  the 
reprobation  by  the  Hellenic  kings  of  the  unholy  violence  of 
Locrian  Ajax. 

The  recovery  of  Aethra,  the  mother  of  Theseus,  supplies  an 
Athenian  allusion  which  might  be  gratifying  to  Cimon. 

The  Peisianactian,  afterwards  called  the  Poecile  Stoa,  at 
Athens  was  decorated  with  paintings,  partly  at  least  by 
Polygnotus,  and  partly  by  Micon,  who  appears  as  his  col- 
league in  another  instance,  and  partly,  as  it  seems,  though  at 
a  later  date,  by  Panaenus,  brother  of  Pheidias. 

Pausanias,  who  gives  no  names  of  painters,  enumerates — 

(1)  Battle  of  Athenians  and  Lacedaemonians  at  Oenoe  in 
Argolis  ;  the  battle  and  the  painter  are  alike  unrecorded. 

(2)  The  battle  of  Theseus  and  Athenians  with  the  Amazons  ; 
distinctly  ascribed  to  l  Micon. 

(3)  The  third,  which  2  Plutarch  ascribes  to  Polygnotus,  was 

1  Ariatoph.  Lytist.  678  ff.  J  Cimon,  4. 


xxii.]  PAINTINGS  OF  POLYGNOTUS.  305 

at  least  a  repetition  of  the  subject  that  he  painted  at  Delphi, — 
the  Capture  of  Troy  and  debate  on  the  sacrilege  of  the  Locrian 
Ajax.  This  latter  incident  was  painted  again  by  an  Athenian 
at  Olympia,  and  must  have  been  recommended  by  some 
specific  application  to  current  feelings,  apparently  as  repro- 
bating the  sacrilege  of  the  northern  Greeks,  who  had  abetted 
that  of  the  Persians,  It  was  in  this  that  a  portrait  of  Elpiniee 
was  introduced  as  Laodice,  the  most  beautiful  of  the  daughters 
of  Priam. 

(4)  And  the  most  celebrated — the  battle  of  Marathon,  which 
authorities  ascribe  variously  to  Micou  and  to  Panaenus. 

The  subjects  chosen  indicate  the  prevailing  influence  of 
Cimon,  the  son  of  the  victor  at  Marathon. 

In  the  temple  of  the  Dioscuri  at  Athens,  Polygnotus  painted 
their  marriage  with  the  daughters  of  Leucippus, — how  treated 
the  text  does  not  enable  us  even  to  conjecture.  Micon  painted 
here  the  Argonauts, — including,  no  doubt,  the  Dioscuri, — 
though  the  picture  was  chiefly  admired  for  the  horses  of 
Acastus. 

In  the  Pinacotheca,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Propylaea, 
Pausanias  saw  six  pictures  among  others  of  which  he  gives  the 
subjects,  and  seems  to  ascribe  them  all — the  more  probably  as 
they  seem  to  constitute  a  set — to  Polygnotus. 

(1)  Diomedes  carrying  off  the  Palladium  from  Ilion. 

(2)  Ulysses  obtaining  the  bow  of  Philoctetes  in  Lemnos. 
Here  we  have  manifestly  a  pair ;  and  the  common  theme  of 
fraudulent  capture  of  a  charm  involving  the  fate  of  a  city 
may  be  taken  as  an  appropriate  warning  to  wardens  of  an 
Acropolis. 

(3)  Orestes  slaying    Aegisthus,  and    Pylades  the  sons  of 
Nauplius,  who  come  to  his  rescue. 

(4)  Polyxena  on  the  point  of  being  sacrificed  at  the  tomb  of 
Achilles.      This  was  no  doubt    the  Polyxena  that  we  have 
found  cited  with  admiration. 

These  two  subjects  have  this  at  least  in  common,  that  they 

x 


306  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

are  parallel  examples  of  revenge,  retributive  or  superstitious, 
for  the  death  of  a  father. 

(5)  Achilles  among  the  virgins  at  Scyros, — whether  at  the 
moment  of  his  discovery  by  Ulysses  as  represented  in  many 
ancient  works  of  art,  especially  in  a  very  remarkable  Pompeian 
picture,  does  not  appear. 

(6)  Ulysses  himself,  and  the  maidens  along  with  Nausicaa, 
at  the  river. 

Here  again  a  parallelism  is  palpable, — in  each  picture  a  dis- 
covered hero  and  scared  maidens, — but  not  so  any  definite 
reference  to  the  place  or  to  the  companion  pictures. 

Lastly  may  be  noticed  the  pictures  in  the  pronaos  of 
the  temple  raised  by  the  Plataeans  to  Athene  Areia, — the 
Warrior  Athene, — Pausanias  says  from  their  share  of  the  spoils 
of  the  victory  at  Marathon. 

(1)  By  Polygnotus, — Ulysses  immediately  after  the  slaughter 
of  the  suitors. 

(2)  By  Onasias,  a  painter  otherwise  unknown, — the  first 
expedition  of  the  Argives  against  Thebes. 

The  date  of  this  temple,  no  doubt,  can  scarcely  but  have 
been  later  than  the  demolition  of  Plataea  and  its  sanctuaries 
by  the  Persians,  but  even  so,  as  peculiarly  commemorative  of 
the  battle  of  Marathon,  it  would  be  considered  as  built  from 
the  spoils,  while  it  might  all  the  same  receive  dedications 
in  memorial  of  later  victories. 

The  paintings  at  least  have  much  more  obvious  reference  to 
Plataea  than  to  Marathon.  Plataeans  restored  to  home  and 
territory  after  prolonged  exile,  and  recovering  all  and  more 
than  all  after  decisive  victory  and  a  general  slaughter  of  their 
enemies  at  their  very  gates,  might  fairly  look  through  Homer 
and  find  and  wish  no  fairer  antitype  of  their  triumph  than 
Ulysses  standing  in  blood  amidst  the  heaped  bodies  of  his 
enemies  in  his  own  recovered  palace  hall.  But  otherwise  I  am 
much  disposed  to  question  the  ascription  of  the  picture  to 
Polygnotus,  and  to  connect  the  subject  with  the  much  later 


xxii.]  PAINTINGS  AT  PLATAEA.  307 

incident  of  the  slaughter  by  the  Plataeans  of  the  treacherously 
intrusive  Thebans,  the  opening  incident  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war. 

The  selection  of  the  other  subject  as  appropriately  typical 
of  the  position  of  Plataea  at  this  time  has  peculiar  interest, 
because  it  explains  how  the  Athenians  also  may  have  been 
consistently  disposed  to  read  off  the  significance  of  the  same 
subject  as  it  was  treated  at  this  time  by  Aeschylus  in  the 
Seven  against  Thebes.  The  discomfiture  of  the  Argives  might 
seem  to  represent  a  triumph  for  Thebes ;  but  it  was  evidently 
not  so  regarded.  The  assailant  himself  was  a  Theban,  and  he 
fell,  like  the  Theban  allies  of  Persia,  while  inciting  and  leading 
on  a  host  of  foreign  allies  against  those  most  closely  united 
with  him  in  blood.  The  whole  story  was  one  of  fratricidal  and 
parricidal  horrors,  and  began  and  ended  in  the  disgrace  and 
desolation  of  Thebes,  the  direst  and  most  inveterate,  but  at 
this  time  the  disarmed  enemy  of  Plataea  and  Athens. 


X   2 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

THEMISTOCLES   IN   PELOPONNESUS. 

WHILE  the  Athenians  during  these  years  were  actively 
exercising  their  own  powers,  and  arrogating  more  and  more 
independent  control  over  their  allies,  the  Spartans  would 
appear  as  strangely  inert;  but  the  hints  which  we  gather 
from  Herodotus  are  found  confirmed  in  general  terms  by 
Thucydides,  of  collisions  with  their  immediate  neighbours, 
so  serious  that  they  might  well  concur  with  certain  do- 
mestic embarrassments  to  hamper  wider  action.  Brilliant  as 
had  been  the  achievements  of  Leotychides  and  Pausanias, 
their  misconduct  in  foreign  commands  was  more  than 
sufficient  to  confirm  the  national  maxim  of  abstention  from 
remote  enterprises ;  and  a  jealous  oligarchy  was  on  its 
guard  against  indulging  the  enthusiastic  emulation  of  the 
young,  or  affording  unnecessarily  a  dangerous  relaxation  of 
that  galling  restraint  by  which  peace  at  home  was  system- 
atically made  for  the  Spartan  more  irksome  than  war  in 
the  field.  And  Pausanias  was  still  among  them,  humiliated 
and  kept  in  check  he  might  be,  but  yet  no  inconsiderable 
power.  He  seems  to  have  had  some  sympathetic  partisans 
even  among  the  ephors;  but  that  he  was  not  driven  into 
exile  like  so  many  of  his  predecessors  was  probably  due 
less  to  his  personal  influence  as  a  Heracleid,  or  respect  for 
the  victor  of  Plataea,  than  to  the  proof  which  he  had  already 
given  of  his  powers  for  formidable  mischief  when  remote 


THEMISTOCLES  IN  PELOPONNESUS.          309 

from  direct  control.  In  the  meantime  uneasy  feelings  of 
danger  were  gathering  strength  in  connection  with  his 
discontent,  and  even  obscure  suspicions  of  intrigue  among 
the  helots. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  might  well  be  thought  ad- 
visable by  the  ephors  to  withdraw  for  a  time  from  active 
interference  in  extra-Peloponnesian  politics,  and  to  be  satisfied 
with  watching  the  movements  of  party  at  Athens  and  pro- 
moting as  they  might  so  welcome  a  result  as  the  extrusion 
of  the  mistrusted,  or  certainly  inimical,  Themistocles,  and 
the  establishment  in  power  of  the  more  ingenuous  and  ever 
friendly  Cimon. 

But  the  Lacedaemonians  were  soon  to  discover  that  The- 
mistocles ostracised  might  be  scarcely  less  troublesome  than 
Themistocles  supreme  at  Athens ;  in  no  short  time  their 
views  and  interests  within  Peloponnesus  itself  were  thwarted 
in  a  variety  of  transactions  that  had  much  appearance  of 
proceeding  in  concert.  We  owe  to  an  incidental  notice  by 
1  Herodotus  of  the  official  services  of  the  seer  Tisamenus, 
our  only  information,  that  at  some  time  between  the  battle 
of  Plataea  (Ol.  75.  i ;  479  B.C.)  and  the  siege  of  Ithome 
(Ol.  78.  4 ;  465  B.C.)  two  victories  were  gained  by  Sparta 
which  imply  two  distinct  wars ;  the  first  was  over  the  Tegeans 
in  their  own  territory  supported  by  the  Argives,  and  the 
second  at  Dipaea  in  the  Maeualian  2  district  over  all  the 
Arcadians  in  alliance,  except  the  Mantineans.  The  exception 
is  important,  but  conflict  with  such  a  league  must  still 
have  been  serious.  That  the  Mantineans  stood  aloof  may 
be  probably  accounted  for  less  by  present  sympathy  with 
Sparta  than  by  jealousy  of  an  alliance  between  Argos  and 
Tegea,  their  neighbours  on  either  side,  or  even  among  the 
general  Arcadian  cities.  Only  a  few  years  later  they  are 
found  annexing  territory  and  asserting  control  over  other 

1  Herod,  ix.  35.  2  Paus.  iii.  n.  6. 


310  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Arcadians,  and  then  the  course  of  politics  turns  them  back 
towards  an  Argive  alliance  for  security  against  the  jealousy 
of  *  Sparta.  Unless  some  other  equally  uncited  authority  is 
relied  on,  it  seems  to  be  by  misreading1  Strabo  that  Curtius 
dates  at  this  time  the  fortification  of  Mantinea  under  Argive 
influence. 

We  are  left  in  ignorance  as  to  the  interval  that  may  have 
separated  these  victories,  but  may  fairly  assume  that  each  was 
led  up  to  by  a  series  of  considerable  disputes  and  difficulties. 
We  are  equally  left  to  conjecture,  but  not  unsupported  by 
strong  presumptions,  as  to  how  these  complications  may 
have  been  dependent  on  some  others  of  which  Argos  was 
the  centre. 

Argos  was  the  usual  residence  of  Themistocles,  and  it 
re  impossible  not  to  connect  the  notice  of  Thucydides  that 
he  was  in  frequent  movement  about  Peloponnesus,  with  the 
changes  that  followed  on  rapidly  in  various  directions, — all 
inimical  to  the  influence  of  Sparta  over  even  her  immediate 
neighbours  or  most  constant  allies, — all  tending  to  strengthen 
individual  states,  and  to  dispose  them  to  independence  in 
the  choice  of  their  alliances. 

It  was  something,  though  it  might  not  be  very  much, 
that  the  scattered  populations  of  Elis  were  now  gathered 
from  smaller  townships  into  one  city.  This  process  was 
always  justly  recognised  in  Greece  as  endowing  a  nation 
with  the  first  condition  of  vigour  and  independence.  There 
is  every  appearance  that  it  was  by  promoting  such  a  policy, 
at  Mantinea  especially,  and  then  at  other  cities  that  became 
afterwards  of  chief  importance  in  both  Arcadia  and  Achaia, 
that  Argos  had  in  past  centuries  averted  the  entire  absorption 
of  the  Peloponnesus  by  the  Dorian  conquerors  of  2  Sparta. 

At  Elis,  which,  protected  by  the  universally  recognised 
consecration  of  its  territory,  dispensed  with  fortifications, 

1  Thuc.  v.  29.  81.  »  Strabo,  337.    C'f.  348-356. 


xxm.]  RECOVERY  OF  ARGOS.  311 

the  chief  motive  may  have  been  consciousness  of  enhanced 
importance  from  the  great  accession  of  valuable  dedications 
after  the  Persian  war,  of  which  more  were  already  preparing : 
at  the  same  time  it  must  be  observed,  that  susceptibilities 
are  developed  in  the  future  relations  of  Elis  and  Sparta  which 
could  not  have  been  unaffected  by  this  present  self-assertion. 
The  present  agitations  are  premonitory  of  the  occasion  when 
Elis,  Argos,  and  Mantinea  were  to  present  a  bold  front  to 
Sparta,  by  concluding  a  joint  alliance  with  Athens,  offensive 
and  defensive,  for  one  hundred  Jyears.  A  like  movement 
of  concentration,  but  carried  through  with  violence  under 
circumstances  peculiarly  offensive  to  Sparta,  was  now  com- 
menced at  Argos, — at  Argos  the  refuge  of  the  restless 
Athenian,  and  bearing  marks  of  being  prompted  by  the 
genius  who  prided  himself  on  skill  to  raise  a  small  city  into 
the  position  of  a  great  one.  In  working  for  the  advancement 
in  power  of  the  most  jealous  enemy  of  Sparta  in  Peloponnesus, 
he  was  but  following  out  in  exile  the  policy  that  he  had 
consistently  advocated  at  home.  Argos  certainly  had  re- 
jected his  proposals  heretofore;  had  held  aloof  from  the 
alliance  against  Persia, — had,  as  Herodotus  avers,  positively 
Medised  ;  not  only  sent  no  force  to  Thermopylae,  to  Salamis 
or  Plataea,  but  promised  Mardonius  aid,  though  more  than 
she  was  able  or  could  dream  of  being  able  to  perform,  to 
detain  the  Lacedaemonians  within  the  Isthmus,  and  had  at 
least  given  promptest  and  repeated  notice  of  their  move- 
ments. Such  were  the  sins  of  her  policy  against  Hellas ; 
but  Themistocles,  apart  from  a  politician's  usual  tenderness 
towards  any  policy  that  succeeds,  could  only  witness  with 
pleasure  dispositions  that  might  be  turned  to  the  ultimate 
advantage  of  Athens.  Argos  had  avowedly  spared  her  re- 
sources during  the  Persian  struggle,  from  the  necessity  of 
recovering  population  which  a  defeat — a  massacre — by  the 

1  Thuc.  v.  47. 


312  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Lacedaemonians  had  seriously  and  dangerously  reduced,  and 
this  policy  now  looked  for  its  reward.  In  the  time  of  her 
weakness  her  authority  had  been  contemned  by  the  adjacent 
towns,  —  far  inferior  now,  whatever  their  proud  rivalry  in 
poetry  and  mythology,  —  of  Tiryns,  Hysiae,  Orneae,  Mideia,  and 
above  all  l  Mycenae.  Pausanias  tells  the  same  story  as  Diodorus, 
that  the  pride  of  Argos  was  wounded  to  the  quick  by  the 
Mycenians  having  presumed,  —  in  contravention  of  her  decree 
of  neutrality,  —  to  despatch  even  eighty  men  to  Thermopylae, 
and  the  oflfence  had  been  repeated,  in  company  with  the 
other  towns,  at  Plataea.  Their  anticipation  that  they  would 
thus  engage  the  protection  of  Sparta  against  Argos  was 
frustrate.  Argos  seized  an  opportunity  when  Sparta  was 
either  fully  occupied  nearer  home,  or  in  one  of  her  calculated 
periods  of  seeming  inaction  but  secret  discipline  and  drill, 
to  attack  them  with  all  her  force  and  with  the  aid  of 
2Cleonae,  a  town  which  had  a  quarrel  on  its  own  account 
respecting  precedence  at  the  Nemean  games,  and  of  the 
Tegeans,  who  were  ever  too  jealous  of  Spartan  power  to 
be  mindful  at  this  opportunity  of  their  solemn  oath  never 
to  subvert  the  city  of  a  confederate  against  Persia. 

Diodorus  dates  these  events  in  the  archonship  of  Theage- 
nides  (B.C.  468-7),  and,  with  his  habitual  inexactness,  *as  if 
commenced  and  concluded  within  the  year;  while  at  the 
same  time  he  ascribes  the  abstention  of  the  Spartans  from 
interference,  to  difficulties  consequent  on  the  great  earthquake, 
which  certainly  did  not  occur  till  three  years  later.  Mycenae 
offered  considerable  resistance,  but  how  prolonged  before 
its  final  catastrophe  there  is  no  means  of  deciding.  It  is 
most  natural  to  suppose  that  it  was  at  a  later  and  not  earlier 
date  that  the  Spartans  were  roused  to  activity  at  last,  or 
chose  to  resume  it  with  effective  suddenness,  when,  under  the 
auspices  of  Tisamenus,  they  inflicted  the  defeat  upon  the 


.  ii.  16.  5  ;  viii.  27.  i  ;  Diod.  Sic.  xi.  65.  »  Strabo,  377. 


xxm.]  SUBVERSION  OF  MYCENAE.  313 

Tegeans  and  Argives  together.  The  defeat  of  the  united 
Arcadians  was  still  later,  but  it  is  probable  that  the  Arcadian 
alliance  was  threatening  trouble  previously,  and  even  that 
it  was  this  embarrassment  that  cut  off  the  Spartans  from 
coming  to  the  rescue  of  Mycenae. 

Diodorus  states  that  the  inhabitants  of  Mycenae  were 
reduced  to  slavery ;  but  this  is  a  mistake,  or  his  word  is 
employed  loosely  as  it  may  be  on  other  like  occasions,  a 
not  unimportant  warning.  Pausanias  informs  us  that  it 
was  after  a  siege,  prolonged  by  the  strength  of  their 
primaeval  Cyclopean  fortifications  till  provisions  failed,  that 
some  of  the  Mycenians — it  is  implied  but  few,  who  were 
probably  the  anti-national  leaders — retired  to  Cleonae,  the 
very  ally  of  Argos ;  so  considerable  a  number  settled  at 
Ceryneia  in  Achaia  as  to  enhance  its  strength  and  import- 
ance ;  and  more  than  half  took  refuge  with  Alexander  of 
Macedon.  Their  attraction  to  Ceryneia  and  reception  there, 
seem  explained  sufficiently  by  traces  of  some  traditional  con- 
nection with  the  city  of  Agamemnon,  which  reflect,  there 
can  be  little  doubt,  a  true  connection  with  the  ancient  centre 
of  Achaian  power.  1  Pausanias  saw  there  a  fane  of  the 
Eumenides  which  was  said  to  be  a  foundation  of  Orestes; 
the  temple  statues  were  of  wood,  but  well  executed  marble 
statues  of  priestesses  were  about  the  entrance ;  for  those  stained 
with  murder  or  other  pollution,  or  sacrilege,  to  enter  the 
sacred  precinct,  involved  the  risk  of  raving  madness.  The 
style  of  the  monuments  and  the  tone  of  the  traditions  alike 
refer  us  to  times  long  gone  by  for  their  origin. 

The  Alexander  of  Macedon  who  received  the  fugitives  is 
the  same  of  whom  Herodotus  relates  as  within  his  own 
knowledge  that  he  presented  himself  as  a  competitor  at  the 
Olympic  games,  was  met  by  an  objection  of  un-Hellenic 
origin,  but  established  his  claim  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 

1  Paus.  vii.  25.  6. 


314  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

Hellaiiodicae,  and  was  admitted  and  matched  in  the  contest 
of  the  stadium.  It  was  not  merely  as  Hellenic  but  as 
Heracleid,  as  descendant  of  the  Temenid  kings  of  Argos, 
that  the  Macedonian  protected  refugees  from  the  antique 
metropolis  of  the  realm  of  Danaus  and  Pelops  and  Aga- 
memnon; so  he  vindicated  again  his  semi-mythical  claim 
of  descent,  and  afforded  an  example  that  was  not  lost  upon 
his  successors,  when  the  time  was  ripe  for  turning  it  to 
true  political  account  in  more  active  interferences.  It  is 
very  probable  that  the  appearance  of  Alexander  at  Olympia 
was  at  that  second  recurrence  after  the  Medica  (Ol.  77  = 
472-71  B.C.)  when  Hiero  and  Theron  were  also  competitors, 
and  Themistocles  and  Cimon  rivals  in  hospitality  and  dis- 
play. Such  congresses  of  the  '  great  ones '  do  not  occur 
without  the  pretext  of  peaceful  amusement  being  made  the 
opportunity  for  conferences  of  which  results  are  apt  to 
become  apparent  within  a  year  or  two  on  the  course  of 
politics.  The  interests  of  Athens  and  of  Macedon,  the  scenes 
of  action  of  Alexander  and  of  Cimon,  were  in  close  proximity 
in  Thrace  and  on  the  Strymon ;  and  remembrance  of  the 
amenities  of  Olympia  may  easily  have  encouraged  the  Athe- 
nian demus  a  few  years  later  in  their  Jealousy  of  Cimon's 
tenderness  towards  a  regal  guest  when  an  opportunity  was 
neglected  of  gaining  a  political  advantage  for  Athens  by 
despoiling  1him. 

The  resistance  and  treatment  of  the  Mycenians  were  alike 
exceptional.  The  occupants  of  the  other  suppressed  towns 
and  of  numerous  scattered  villages  were  incorporated  as 
citizens  at  2 Argos,  of  which  we  are  left  to  infer  that  the 
fortifications  were  at  the  same  time  correspondingly  extended. 

1  Plut.  Cimon,  14.  a  Pausan.  ii.  25.  5. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

THE    SEVEN    AGAINST    THEBES   OF   AESCHYLUS. 

IT  was  in  the  spring-  of  467  B.C.,  the  year  after  the  victory 
of  Sophocles  with  his  Triptolemus,  that  Aeschylus  is  now 
known  to  have  obtained  the  first  prize  with  his  Oedipodeia,  a 
tetralogy  or  system  of  four  dramas, — consisting  of  a  tragic 
trilogy,  La'i'us,  Oedipus,  The  Seven  against  Thebes,  and  a  sa- 
tyric  play,  The  Sphinx, — which  had  for  their  subject  the  crimes 
and  fate  of  the  house  of  Lams  of  Thebes.  The  titles  of  the 
tragedies  show  that,  like  those  of  the  Oresteia,  they  followed 
on  in  historical  sequence  of  subjects,  although,  in  the  tetra1- 
logy  that  comprised  the  Persae,  the  poet  had  already  either 
set  or  followed  the  example  of  a  broader  principle  of  com- 
bination. The  second  prize  was  gained  by  Aristias  with 
plays  of  which  we  have  only  the  titles,  Perseus,  Tantalus, 
and  The  Wrestlers  ;  the  last  apparently  a  satyric  drama  of 
his  father  Pratinas  of  Phlius,  who  in  these  compositions  was 
accounted  inferior  to  Aeschylus  l  alone.  The  third  place 
only  was  granted  to  a  tetralogy  on  the  Thracian  subject  of 
Lycurgus — the  Lycurgeia  of  Polyphradmon. 

It  was  to  the  great  surprise  of  very  confident  theorisers 
that  the  discovery  of  the  didascalia  by  Franz,  in  1 850,  proved 
The  Seven  against  Thebes,  concluding  as  it  does  with  the 
announcement  of  the  new  dispute  that  gave  Sophocles  the 

1  Paus.  ii.  13   5.     ' 


316  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

subject  for  his  Antigone,  to  be  not  the  intermediate,  but  the 
final  play  of  a  trilogy.  Disconcerted  criticism  however  finds 
consolation  in  the  promise  that  as  a  final  play  it  may  point 
more  unequivocally  to  the  main  drift  and  purport  of  what 
went  before,  and  has  been  lost. 

Far  back  in  the  story  of  the  first  drama,  as  reported  in  the 
argument,  lie  the  weakness  and  intemperance  of  Theban 
Laius,  who  thrice  warned  by  Apollo  that  the  salvation  of 
his  country  depends  on  his  dying  childless,  gives  in  to  false 
counsels  of  friends  and  —  commencement  of  mischief  that  is  to 
be  propagated  to  the  third  generation  —  perishes  by  the 
hands  of  his  own  son.  Oedipus,  whose  deed  is  unconsciously 
parricide,  contracts  an  incestuous  marriage,  ignorantly  still, 
but  by  2  mad  folly  (irapavoia),  a  term  of  which  the  import  in 
this  place  could  only  be  explained  by  the  preceding  lost  drama. 
Maddened  and  humiliated  by  the  discovery  and  then  by  the 
undutifulness  of  his  sons,  he  utters  a  hasty  and  fearful  curse  ; 
it  is  with  steel  that  they  shall  share  their  common  kingdom 
between  them.  Fraternal  hatred  continues  horrors  that  parri- 
cide and  incest  have  not  exhausted,  to  the  third  generation. 
Eteocles  in  possession  is  assailed  by  his  brother  Polyneices 
with  six  allies  from  Argos,  each  of  whom  advances  against  one 
gate  of  Thebes  ;  he  assigns  opponents  at  six  several  gates, 
elects  to  oppose  his  own  brother  at  the  seventh  himself,  and 
briefly,  the  brothers  fall,  each  on  the  spear-point  of  the 
other. 

Notwithstanding  the  nature  of  such  a  subject  there  is  in 
truth  very  little  in  the  treatment  of  it  by  Aeschylus  to  assist 
a  theory  which  has  obtained  so  strange  an  acceptation,  that 
blind  immoral  Fate  is  supreme  in  the  tragedy  of  the  Greeks. 
The  enunciation  of  this  principle  may  be  carried  up  to  the 
Oedipus  of  Seneca,  which  has  had  extraordinary  influence  on 
the  tlevelopement  of  a  modern  school  of  classical  drama,  but 


.  Sept.  c.  Tlicb.  740-763.  *  Ib.  756. 


xxiv.]  THE  SEVEN  AGAINST  THEBES.  317 

scarcely  further.  To  affiliate  it  to  Athenian  poetry  were  as 
gross  an  outrage  as  to  make  Aristotle  answerable  for  the 
three  unities  of  the  French  drama.  What  Greek  tragedy 
does  no  doubt  harp  on,  and  with  an  impressiveness  that 
awes  us  now,  and  now  engages  our  compassion,  is  the  natural 
truth  that  the  sins  of  fathers  are  painfully  visited  on  the 
children;  but  it  sets  forth,  not  obscurely  withal,  that  this 
is  in  no  slight  degree  because  the  dispositions  that  pro- 
duce and  repeat  the  sins  are  inherited  by  the  children,  who 
therefore  aby  the  consequences  not  more  of  their  father's 
nature  than  of  their  own.  Familiar  alike  to  the  experience  of 
all  men,  and  to  the  records  of  history — of  the  Tudors  and  the 
Stuarts  as  of  the  Claudian  gens — is  the  persistence  of  family 
characteristics  and  the  tendency  for  the  mischief  of  one 
generation,  when  happy  interposition  fails,  to  be  aggravated 
in  the  next,  till  it  ends  by  natural  exhaustion ;  for  cumulative 
wrong,  unless  stayed  at  favourable  1  moment  by  self-sacrifice 
and  self-restraint,  to  hurry  on  ruin  and  annihilation. 

The  story  of  Oedipus,  however  treated,  could  scarcely  but 
involve  such  aspersions  upon  Theban  national  characteristics 
as  were  always  welcome  to  Athenians ;  and  it  is  even  pos- 
sible that  some  of  those  intestine  quarrels  in  Thebes  which  are 
speedily  to  become  declared  in  political  results,  might  already 
be  sufficiently  malignant  to  remind  men  of  the  unnatural  hosti- 
lities of  the  sons  of  Oedipus.  We  have  one  hint  of  a  certain 
movement  at  Thebes  at  this  time  which  cannot  be  without 
significance,  however  difficult  it  may  be  to  interpret  it  fully. 
Herodotus  tells  us  that  it  was  twenty  years  after  the  invasion 
of  Datis  and  Artaphernes  (490  B.C.),  and  therefore,  allowing 
for  the  round  number,  within  a  year  or  two  of  the  date  of  the 
Oedipodeia  (467  B.C.),  that  the  Thebans,  in  obedience  to  an 
oracle,  restored  to  Delium,  close  upon  the  Attic  boundary,  a 
statue  of  Apollo  that  had  been  carried  off  by  the  fleet  of 

1  Aesch.  Sept.  c.  Theb.  705-708. 


318  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Datis,  and  afterwards  deposited  by  him,  in  consequence  of  a 
dream,  at  the  sacred  island  of  Delos.  This  solemn  reparation 
of  a  Median  outrage  can  scarcely  but  have  had  some  bearing 
on  the  opprobrium  of  Medism  which  one  party  at  Thebes 
had  an  interest  in  keeping  alive.  The  incident  may  well  have 
had  a  party  import  as  distinct  as  the  recovery  of  the  relics 
of  Theseus,  which  may  indeed  have  suggested  it.  Still 
it  must  be  said  that  the  tone  of  the  poet  is  not  such 
as  to  turn  our  thoughts  with  distinct  intention  towards  con- 
temporary Boeotia.  What  then  was  the  crisis  that  at  this 
time  chiefly  engaged  the  attention  of  Athenians  in  the  larger 
range  of  politics  ? 

There  is  this  unexampled  peculiarity  in  the  situation  of 
affairs.  From  this  year,  467  B.C.,  the  Greek  could  look  back 
to  about  475,  over  a  happy  blank,  a  period  of  about  two 
Olympiads,  during  which,  after  the  subsidence  of  troubles  due 
to  the  Persian  invasion,  the  internal  peace  of  Hellas  had  had 
no  interruption  by  conflicts  of  sufficient  gravity  to  occupy  a 
brief  page  of  the  chronicles.  But  an  ominous  change  had 
supervened,  'the  noise  of  battle  hurtles  in  the  air,'  Sparta 
is  embroiled  with  Tegea,  ever  the  harbour  and  resort  of  her 
exiled  kings,  and  with  Argives  in  J  alliance.  A  victory  is 
gained,  but  a  battle  has  again  to  be  fought,  if  again  victo- 
riously, against  all  Arcadia  in  alliance  except  the  Mantineans. 
The  struggle  is  still  sustained  when  Argos,  her  youthful 
vigour  now  recovered  from  the  blow  of  Cleomenes,  can  seize 
an  opportunity  to  consolidate  her  power  by  the  incorporation  of 
several  smaller  territories,  and  then  by  the  siege  and  ultimate 
capture  and  razing  of  Mycenae,  her  rival  in  traditional — in 
poetical — claims  that  were  of  no  slight  value  for  political 
purposes. 

Thus  the  Hellas  of  the  days  of  united  glory  was  harshly 
roused  from  a  dream  of  tranquillity  by  revival  of  dire  inter- 

1  Herod,  ix.  35. 


xxiv.]         SPIRIT  OF  THE  BAN  MYTHOLOGY.  319 

necine  quarrel ;  war  desperate  and  vindictive  was  again 
afoot  extending  its  designs  to  the  extrusion  of  nearest  neigh- 
bours, the  extirpation  of  seats  of  most  ancient  mythical 
renown. 

The  story  of  Thebes  furnished  a  fable  that  brought  into 
visible  action  all  the  passions  and  excitements  of  this  crisis ; 
hereditary  violence  and  crime,  with  Argive  ambition  to  aid, 
are  found  to  reproduce  themselves  with  ineradicable  per- 
sistency ;  and  even  at  last,  when  the  brothers  fall  together, 
it  seems  that  from  their  very  burial  is  to  spring  a  new  root 
of  domestic  dissension  and  political  misery.  The  warlike  spirit 
of  the  champion  of  Marathon  is  indulged  by  a  welcome  outlet 
in  his  verse ; — in  the  words  assigned  to  him  by  Aristophanes, 
'  it  is  a  drama  brimful  of  the  war- god,  and  every  beholder  of 
it  would  fain  be  a  warrior  himself;'  but  it  is  on  a  long  wail 
that  the  story  draws  to  an  end  ;  the  pomp  and  the  clatter  of 
war  have  passed  away  together ;  the  pride  in  the  infliction 
and  the  endurance  of  horrors  that  ever  tend  to  reproduce  more 
crime  than  they  destroy,  leave  us  to  make  the  best  of  the 
moral  at  last,  that  unnatural  and  vindictive  warfare  between 
either  princes  or  nations  allied  in  blood  has  its  happiest  ending 
when  both  parties  suffer  alike,  and  yet  even  then  is  apt  to  do 
little  more  effectually  than  enforce  a  pause  for  the  maturing  of 
the  dragon's  teeth  that  it  has  sown  anew. 

The  story  of  Oedipus  was  not  likely  to  be  treated  by  an 
Athenian  poet,  and  at  Athens,  without  being  turned  in  some 
degree  to  the  disparagement  of  Thebes;  but  the  mythus  itself 
has  a  distinct  appearance  of  being  of  genuine  Theban  origin. 
The  story  which  connects  LaYus  with  Elis  by  his  rape  of  a 
beautiful  youth,  corresponds  with  the  evil  report  that  asso- 
ciated Elis  and  l  Boeotia  in  the  coarse  abuse  of  a  form  of 
friendship  which  Homer  exhibits  in  a  still  unsuspected  purity, 
and  which,  faintly  surviving  in  historical  times,  was  at  least 

1  Plato,  Sijmpk.  p.  182,  et  citat. 


320  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

believed  by  Plato  to  be  even  yet  recoverable.  The  oracle 
which  LaYus  disobeys  in  obtaining  offspring1,  points  to  the 
difficulty  of  surplus  population,  so  unhesitatingly  countervailed 
throughout  Hellas  by  exposure  of  the  newly-born ;  and  the 
consequences  of  his  disobedience  seem  to  embody  an  exemplar 
of  the  confusions  which  had  ultimately  led  at  Thebes  to  very 
remarkable  and  exceptional  legislation.  The  so-called  Thetic 
laws  of  Thebes  were  ascribed  to  a  lawgiver  who  came  like 
Oedipus  from l  Corinth.  They  forbade  the  exposure  or  deser- 
tion of  infants, — the  practice  which  the  case  of  Oedipus  ex- 
hibits as  liable  to  bring  about  the  pollution  of  the  country, 
however  unconsciously,  by  incestuous  unions,  certain  to  pro- 
voke the  direst  visitations  of  the  wrath  of  the  gods.  The  babe 
that  otherwise  would  have  had  to  take  its  chance  of  death  or 
of  rescue  to  an  unidentified  life,  was,  in  accordance  with  these 
enactments,  to  be  brought  immediately  on  birth,  and  under 
heavy  penalties,  to  the  authorities,  who  consigned  it  to  who- 
ever offered  a  price,  however  small,  and  was  willing  to  look  to 
its  future  services  as  a  slave  as  remuneration  for  cost  and 
tending  in  the  2  meantime. 

1  Aristot.  Pol.  xi.  9.  *  Aelian,  V.  H.  ii.  7. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 

THE    CATASTROPHE   OF   PAUSANIAS    AND    FLIGHT   OF 
THEMISTOCLES. 

B.C.  467-466 ;  01.  78.  2. 

SPARTA  then  had  been  disabled  by  whatever  embarrass- 
ments from  interposing-  in  time  to  arrest  the  progress  of  Argos 
to  an  aggrandizement  which  threatened  to  furnish,  when  time 
should  be  ripe,  a  valuable  ally  to  Athens;  but  she  clearly 
vindicated  her  power  at  the  first  opportunity,  and  in  the 
double  victories  over  Tegea  and  Argos  first,  and  then  over 
the  united  Arcadians,  the  impact  of  her  disciplined  hoplites 
told  with  its  usual  effect.  It  shattered  opposition  now  as 
effectually  as  when  in  after  years  Alcibiades,  with  diplomacy 
rivalling  that  of  Themistocles,  at  least  succeeded — but  like  his 
predecessor  no  more  than  succeeded — in  forcing  her  to  imperil 
her  supremacy  upon  a  single  field  against  almost  the  same 
1  antagonists.  Spartan  influence  in  Peloponnesus  was  at  once 
fully  restored,  and  as  a  valued  consequence  she  was  in  a 
position  to  free  herself  once  for  all  from  the  dreaded  ma- 
chinations of  Themistocles,  though  the  opportunity  only  came 
about  in  the  course  of  events  that  involved  a  domestic  crisis 
of  danger  and  disorder. 

Sharply  as  the  designs  of  Pausanias  had  been  checked,  he 
had  never  renounced  them,  and  when  he  became  aware  that 
Themistocles,  fallen  like  himself  into  home  disgrace,  was 

1  Thucyd.  vi.  16. 
y 


322  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

fretting  in  his  exile  with  impatience  and  discontent,  he  counted 
at  once  on  sympathetic  rancour  as  well  as  ancient  friendship 
to  aid  him  in  the  revolution  that  he  was  still  plotting  against 
ungrateful  and  unworthy  Hellenes.  Such  had  before  been 
the  revenge  of  Demaratus  against  one  city,  and  of  the  son 
of  Peisistratus  against  the  other  ;  and  Leotychides,  who  was 
only  just  dead  and  succeeded  formally  by  his  son  Archi- 
damus,  had  at  least  been  in  a  position  to  be  not  more 
patriotically  employed  while  protected  in  his  suspicious 
refuge  at  hostile  Tegea.  Party  was  not  unknown  at  Sparta, 
and  Pausanias  may  have  found,  if  not  sympathy  for  a  pro- 
ject which  some  ascribed  to  1him, — the  abolition  of  the 
ephorate, — more  probably  encouragement  for  general  inno- 
vation, among  ancient  comrades  and  ambitious  spirits  who 
were  ill  content  with  the  renunciation  of  larger  Hellenic 
hegemony,  and  with  the  elevation  and  pride  of  Athens. 
Even  the  Persians  are  certainly  found  within  a  year  or  two 
well  informed  of  this  latter  root  of  jealousy,  and  prompt  to 
negotiate  on  the  assumption  of  its  bitterness. 

Interpreting  the  feelings  of  Themistocles  by  his  own — of 
the  ill-requited  victor  of  Salamis  by  his  own  memories  of 
Plataea  and  Byzantium — he  had  communicated  to  him  the 
Great  King's  2  letter,  which  seems  so  completely  to  have  turned 
his  own  head,  and  no  doubt  also  his  correspondence,  which  was 
still  active  with  Artabanus,  though  without  the  effect  he  hoped 
for  and  relied  on.  Themistocles,  as  we  might  expect,  shook 
off  the  application,  and  declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  partnership,  but  as  he  declared  afterwards,  in  admitting 
the  communication  so  far,  he  held  it  nevertheless  to  be  no 
part  of  his  to  denounce  a  friend;  quite  as  little  might  he 
think  it  to  be  his  part  as  an  Athenian,  not  out  of  hope  of 
resuming  his  place  at  Athens,  to  put  a  stop  prematurely  to 
transactions  that,  conducted  as  they  were,  could  only  help  to 

1  Arist.  Pollt.  v.  i.  "  Plut.  Themist.  23. 


xxv.]  INTRIGUES  OF  PAUSANIAS.  323 

embarrass  and  weaken  if  not  to  ruin  Sparta,  and  might 
probably  enough  put  events  in  motion  that  would  hasten 
his  own  recall.  Whether  Themistocles  was  made  acquainted 
with  the  domestic  development  of  the  scheme  of  Pausanias 
does  not  appear;  the  plan  for  the  intervention  of  Persia  was 
combined  with  a  plot  for  raising  the  helots  in  rebellion  ; 
he  could  count  on  their  memory  of  the  spoils  and  exploits 
of  Plataea,  and  he  held  out  to  them  the  prospect  of  freedom 
and  of  citizenship,  which  in  later  Spartan  history  is  recognised 
as  a  natural  reward  for  their  services  in  arms.  What  pro- 
gress he  had  made  in  both  directions  is  avouched  by  the 
reappearance  before  long,  and  in  formidable  muster,  of  a 
Perso-Phoenician  fleet,  and  then  by  the  still  more  dangerous 
revolt  of  the  helots  that  was  speedily  to  occur,  though  not 
before  his  own  career,  which  would  have  added  so  much  to 
the  peril,  had  closed  for  ever. 

In  the  meantime  rumours  of  his  intrigues  reached  the 
Ephors ;  the  helots  themselves,  slaves  as  they  were,  had  not 
failed  to  furnish  even  direct  information ;  but  the  maxim 
was  imperative,  not  to  recognise  obligation  to  such  a  source 
alone  in  a  serious  charge  against  any  Spartiat ;  they  could 
only  be  watchful  until  evidence  more  available  arrived.  And 
this  was  not  long  delayed.  Pausanias  had  already  trans- 
mitted a  series  of  communications  to  the  satrap  Artabanus, 
before  the  time  came  for  him  to  entrust  one,  the  most  im- 
portant of  all,  addressed  to  the  king  and  intended  to  be 
conclusive,  to  the  hands  of  a  dependent — there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  a  slave — a  native  of  Argilus  in  Thrace,  who  had 
been  his  confidential  favourite  and  even  something  more. 
When  thus  entrusted,  the  Argilian  called  to  mind,  if  he  had 
not  cared  to  dwell  on  his  suspicions  earlier,  that  no  single 
bearer  of  the  numerous  messages  of  which  he  had  been 
cognisant  had  ever  reappeared.  He  opened  the  packet,  after 
having  prepared  himself  to  reclose  it  with  a  counterfeit  seal 
in  case  all  was  well,  but  found,  as  he  foreboded,  that  it  con- 

Y  2 


324  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

tained  an  instruction  to  put  the  messenger  to  death  as  usual. 
Desperate  and  indignant  he  carried  the  letter  at  once  to  the 
ephors,  with  whatever  other  information  he  could  furnish. 
Yet  even  so,  action  had  still  to  wait  on  hesitation,  and  was 
suspended  for  further  confirmation  of  the  evidence  of  a 
foreigner,  and  of  a  letter  which  however  damning  in  purport 
had  still  been  opened  intermediately.  Arrangements  how- 
ever were  made  at  once  for  procuring  this. 

Pausanias  was  presently  allowed  to  hear,  and  he  heard  with 
alarm,  that  his  messenger  whom  he  supposed  to  be  on  his 
way  to  death,  had  taken  refuge  as  a  suppliant  in  a  hut 
within  the  sacred  precinct  of  Poseidon  at  the  promontory  of 
Taenaron.  Thither  he  hurried  to  seek  an  explanation,  and 
was  greeted  by  the  man  with  reproaches  for  his  cruel 
treachery,  for  having  held  him — him  whom  he  might  have 
safely  trusted  to  take  his  share  in  any  danger  in  the  nego- 
tiations to  which  he  referred  in  detail — in  no  better  honour 
and  esteem  than  to  consign  him  to  death  like  the  rest  whom 
he  had  sent  on  the  service  before  him.  Pausanias  made  every 
effort  to  soothe  and  satisfy  him,  and,  admitting  the  past,  could 
so  far  flatter  himself,  desperate  as  was  the  case,  that  he  had 
worked  upon  the  man,  between  protests  of  regret  and  promise 
of  vast  rewards,  as  to  urge  him  to  quit  the  protecting  sanc- 
tuary with  confidence,  and  undertake  the  journey  without 
delay,  and  so  not  frustrate  what  was  now  on  the  point  of 
conclusion. 

The  confidence  of  the  Spartan  king  in  his  success  could 
scarcely  under  such  circumstances  be  very  assured,  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  when  the  ephors  approached  him  after 
his  return  to  the  city  he  read  the  tokens  of  danger  in  their 
looks ;  they  had  in  fact,  by  prearrangement  of  a  double  wall 
in  the  hut  of  the  suppliant,  been  witnesses  of  the  entire  inter- 
view. A  covert  sign  from  one  ephor  who  was  his  friend  gave 
warning  of  peril,  and  he  ran  at  the  instant,  and  just  in  time, 
to  gain  the  sanctuary  of  Athene  Chalcioecus — Athene  of  the 


xxv.]  CATASTROPHE  OF  PA  US  AN  I  AS.  325 

bronze  house — and  took  refuge  in  a  small  outbuilding  within 
the  sacred  precinct.  The  pursuers  paused  at  the  entrance,  but 
only  to  beset  it.  A  story  was  current  in  later  times,  that 
while  the  ephors  were  considering  what  should  next  be 
done,  the  aged  mother  of  the  traitor  came,  bearing  a  brick, 
which  she  laid  down  on  the  threshold  without  a  word,  and 
then  turned  and  went  to  her  home. 

We  have  the  authority  of  Thucydides  that  the  ephors  did 
in  fact  build  up  the  entrance,  unroof  the  refuge  of  the  sup- 
pliant of  the  goddess,  and  set  a  watch  to  await  the  moment 
when  famine  and  exposure  should  bring  him  to  the  last  gasp  ; 
then,  in  deference  or  subjection  to  the  base  logic  of  super- 
stition— which  however  was  afterwards  to  fail  to  satisfy  them- 
selves— they  drew  him  forth  just  in  time  to  prevent  the  dese- 
cration by  his  death  of  a  holy  place  that  was  not  held  to  be 
desecrated  by  any  cruelty  in  bringing  it  about.  It  was  only 
due  to  some  protest  that  they  did  not  cast  the  body  into 
the  chasm  Caiadas,  the  place  of  shame  for  malefactors,  but 
it  still  was  put  away  in  ground  adjacent.  It  seems  to  have 
been  in  unworthy  imitation  of  this  insult  that  Athens  after- 
wards, with  less  justifying  provocation,  assigned  a  spot  close 
to  the  proud  dedication  of  Themistocles  to  Artemis  Aristo- 
boule,  for  the  bodies  and  instruments  of  death  of  malefactors 
and  l  suicides.  In  time  ensuing,  the  Pythia,  concerned  for 
the  pretensions  and  immunities  of  sanctities,  appended  to 
every  oracle  that  she  delivered  to  Lacedaemonians,  on  what- 
ever subject,  a  command  to  give  back  her  suppliant  to  the 
goddess.  In  formal  compliance  with  the  injunction  they 
then  transferred  his  remains  to  the  precinct — particularly  to 
the  protemenisma  of  the  temple — and  erected  two  statues  of 
him  within  it.  Even  so  their  enemies  held  themselves  en- 
titled to  refer  to  the  repeated  oracles  as  imputing  an  ever 
unexpiated  2  sacrilege,  and  associated  it  with  a  still  less 

1  Pint.  Themist.  22.  2  Thucyd.  i.  128. 


326  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

ceremonious  treatment  of  Helot  suppliants  at  Taenaron, — 
very  probably  among  the  implicated  in  the  intrigues  of 
Pausanias, — who  were  forcibly  dragged  from  the  sanctuary 
to  execution.  For  this  sacrilegious  outrage  the  Lacedae- 
monians themselves  could  recognise  divine  retribution  in 
their  sufferings  by  a  desolating  earthquake — manifest  expres- 
sion of  the  anger  of  the  god  of  Taenaron. 

In  the  meantime  the  correspondence  of  Pausanias  was 
seized,  and,  besides  the  letters  of  the  Persian  king,  some 
documents  were  found  that  promised  a  colourable  pretext 
for  implicating  Themistocles  in  the  crime  of  Medism ;  and 
these  it  was  determined  to  make  use  of  forthwith  for  com- 
pleting if  possible  the  ruin  of  their  ever-dreaded  enemy,  to- 
gether with  the  forfeiture  by  Athens  of  the  services  of  her  most 
gifted  and  best  deserving  citizen.  Envoys  were  accordingly 
sent  to  Athens,  where  he  had  enemies  enough  to  second  them, 
to  urge  on  his  condemnation ;  he  was  charged  in  his  absence 
at  Argos,  and,  though  acquitted  upon  his  transmitted  defence, 
the  accusation  was  renewed  at  the  instance  of  the  Lacedae- 
monians, and  a  proposal  submitted  to  the  Athenians,  that 
the  enquiry  should  be  referred  to  the  common  synedrion  of 
Hellas  to  be  assembled  at  Sparta.  Diodorus  speaks  of 
an  earlier  accusation,  rebutted  by  Themistocles  before  his 
ostracism;  but  this  is  inconsistent  with  his  own  account, 
that  the  charge  was  promoted  by  the  Lacedaemonians,  as 
cognizant,  which  at  that  time  they  were  not,  of  the  secret 
correspondence.  Plutarch,  who  says  that  he  replied  to  the 
Athenians  by  letter  from  Argos,  '  respecting  the  earlier  ac- 
cusations chiefly,'  specifies  a  formal  accusation  by  Leobotes, 
son  of  Alcmaeon,  which  was  also  posterior  to  the  ostracism, 
and  to  which  such  letter  must  have  had  1  reference.  His 
reply  was  in  the  unsubmissive  unconciliatory  style  that  the 
Athenian  demus  had  now  unfortunately  for  itself  to  listen  to 

1  Plut  Themist.  33. 


xxv.]  FLIGHT  OF  THEMISTOCLES.  327 

nearly  for  the  last  time  ;  '  his  ambition  remained  what  it  ever 
had  been,  to  govern,  and  it  was  as  little  in  his  nature  as  his 
desire  to  be  subjected  to  rule,  or  therefore  to  surrender  up 
himself  along  with  Hellas,  to  the  barbarians  who  were  their 
common  enemies.'  Notwithstanding  this  first  acquittal,  such 
a  reaction  occurred  as  the  great  Athenian  historian  is  given 
to  adverting  to  as  characteristic  of  a  popular  assembly,  and 
the  proposal  of  the  Lacedaemonians  gained  acceptance, 
whether  as  Diodorus  says  by  aid  of  bribes,  or  not.  It 
admitted  of  plausible  advocacy ;  it  gave  the  hostility  of 
Cimon  another  chance,  and  was  flattering  to  his  leading 
idea,  that  the  action  of  united  Hellas  might  continue  to  be 
secured  by  a  perfectly  practicable  cordial  alliance  with 
Sparta.  It  was  tempting  to  essay  to  controvert  the  Argive 
policy  which  Themistocles  had  been  working  for,  by  a  revival 
of  the  authority  of  the  Doro-Ioniari  congress,  expressly  to  his 
personal  ruin.  A  joint  party  was  at  once  despatched — the 
Lacedaemonians  had  their  men  ready — with  authority  to 
attach  him  wherever  he  could  be  found ;  and  the  implication 
that  he  might  have  been  seized  even  at  Argos  may  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  ascendancy  there  of  the  friends  of  Sparta, 
after  the  defeat  of  the  allied  Argives  and  Tegeans,  as  well  as 
of  the  united  Arcadians.  He  knew  his  enemies,  however,  and 
even  their  intentions  and  their  movements  too  well,  and  was 
not  to  be  found  easily.  Argos  was  void,  and  when  next 
heard  of  he  was  at  Corcyra ;  he  had  personal  claims  on  the 
Corcyraeans  for  public  services  rendered  to  them,  and  that 
he  should  have  such  is  again  characteristic  of  the  man.  He 
had  evidently  already  discerned  that  Corcyra  westward  was 
as  fitted  to  be  an  advantageous  ally  for  Athens  as  Argos  in 
Peloponnesus ;  and  if  we  may  trust  Plutarch,  the  obligation 
that  Thucydides  refers  to  wTas  an  award  in  their  favour  in 
respect  of  money  and  jurisdiction  over  Leucas,  a  joint  colony, 
as  against  Corinth.  To  weaken  Corinth  by  the  encourage- 
ment of  its  contumacious  colony,  Corcyra,  was  a  policy  in 


328  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

harmony  with  the  consolidation  of  the  power  of  Argos — a 
policy  that  Athens  was  to  adopt  at  a  future  momentous  crisis 
of  her  rivalry  with  Sparta.  The  islanders  however,  whatever 
their  good-will,  could  not  afford  to  provoke  both  the  great 
Hellenic  powers,  though  they  had  held  themselves  proudly 
aloof  from  alliance  with  either,  and  could  only  speed  him  on 
his  way  in  advance  of  the  keen  pursuit. 


CHAPTER     XXVI. 

THEMISTOCLES,    THE   PROMETHEUS    DESMOTES    OP   AESCHYLUS. 

THE  Prometheus  Bound  of  Aeschylus  is  of  all  his  extant 
dramas  most  characteristic  of  the  poet,  and  stands  alone 
moreover  in  the  mysteriousness  and  elevation  of  its  theme 
among  all  the  works  of  the  Greek  tragedians  of  which  we 
have  remains  or  record.  The  subject  goes  hack  even  to  the 
very  commencements  of  human  civilisation,  not  to  say  of 
settled  cosmical  order  ;  and  all  the  actors,  even  the  Chorus 
with  the  rest,  are  superhuman  —  nature-powers,  gods,  or 
Titans,  with  the  exception  of  Io,  who  in  her  strange  trans- 
formation is  scarcely  an  exception.  In  this  play  Aeschylus 
treats  of  the  divine  economy  with  all  the  epic  freedom  of 
Homer,  and  combines,  at  the  same  time  that  he  elevates,  some 
elements  of  sublimity  that  might  have  given  Hesiod,  but  for 
his  crudity  of  treatment,  a  dignity  to  which  even  Homer 
himself  did  not  attain. 

We  have  no  information  whatever  as  to  the  date  when  the 
Prometheus  was  produced,  though  presumably  from  its  style 
it  must  have  been  later  than  both  the  Persae  and  The  Seven 
against  Thebes.  I  now  advance  a  further  presumption  with 
some  confidence  ;  it  appears  strange  that  the  drama  should 
have  been  so  constantly  read,  its  passion  so  sedulously 
scanned,  and  not  have  recalled  the  character  of  Themis- 
tocles  and  his  position  as  ostracised  and  at  Argos ;  the 
agreement  is  such  as  to  argue  strongly  that  Aeschylus, 


328  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

harmony  with  the  consolidation  of  the  power  of  Arg-os — a 
policy  that  Athens  was  to  adopt  at  a  future  momentous  crisis 
of  her  rivalry  with  Sparta.  The  islanders  however,  whatever 
iheir  good- will,  could  not  afford  to  provoke  both  the  great 
Hellenic  powers,  though  they  had  held  themselves  proudly 
aloof  from  alliance  with  either,  and  could  only  speed  him  on 
his  way  in  advance  of  the  keen  pursuit. 


CHAPTER     XXVI. 

THEMISTOCLES,    THE   PROMETHEUS    DESMOTES    OP   AESCHYLUS. 

THE  Prometheus  Bound  of  Aeschylus  is  of  all  his  extant 
dramas  most  characteristic  of  the  poet,  and  stands  alone 
moreover  in  the  mysteriousness  and  elevation  of  its  theme 
among  all  the  works  of  the  Greek  tragedians  of  which  we 
have  remains  or  record.  The  subject  goes  back  even  to  the 
very  commencements  of  human  civilisation,  not  to  say  of 
settled  cosmical  order  ;  and  all  the  actors,  even  the  Chorus 
with  the  rest,  are  superhuman  —  nature-powers,  gods,  or 
Titans,  with  the  exception  of  lo,  who  in  her  strange  trans- 
formation is  scarcely  an  exception.  In  this  play  Aeschylus 
treats  of  the  divine  economy  with  all  the  epic  freedom  of 
Homer,  and  combines,  at  the  same  time  that  he  elevates,  some 
elements  of  sublimity  that  might  have  given  Hesiod,  but  for 
his  crudity  of  treatment,  a  dignity  to  which  even  Homer 
himself  did  not  attain. 

We  have  no  information  whatever  as  to  the  date  when  the 
Prometheus  was  produced,  though  presumably  from  its  style 
it  must  have  been  later  than  both  the  Persae  and  The  Seven 
against  Thebes.  I  now  advance  a  further  presumption  with 
some  confidence  ;  it  appears  strange  that  the  drama  should 
have  been  so  constantly  read,  its  passion  so  sedulously 
scanned,  and  not  have  recalled  the  character  of  Themis- 
tocles  and  his  position  as  ostracised  and  at  Argos ;  the 
agreement  is  such  as  to  argue  strongly  that  Aeschylus, 


330  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

•  L 

with  daring  all  his  own,  brought  home  to  the  Athenians 
the  characteristics  of  their  rejected  hero  even  more  directly 
than  when  he  was  among  them  at  the  height  of  popularity 
and  power.  Sagacity,  versatility,  daring,  unrivalled  and 
combined,  have  conducted  the  Titan,  as  the  Athenian,  to 
the  highest  power  and  alliances  in  a  career  which  never- 
theless is  suddenly  arrested  by  a  terrible  reverse;  but  the 
reverse,  though  in  either  case  unforeseen  in  its  severity  and 
unprepared  for,  is  endured  by  the  victims,  if  not  without  in- 
dignation and  impatience,  yet  in  abiding  self-confidence  that 
sooner  or  later  reaction  must  come  round,  and  their  quali- 
fications be  again  indispensable,  and  the  exacted  reparation 
be  at  their  own  discretion. 

Prometheus  is  addressed  at  the  very  commencement  of  the 
1  play,  in  terms  that  seem  to  indicate  Themistocles  almost  by 
name ;  the  phrase  and  epithet  of  the  line, 

TTJ*  dp6o@ov\ov  StfuSot  alirvfjajra  irat, 

ascribe  the  faculty  of  sagacious  divination  for  which  he  was 
most  renowned,  recall  his  vaunt  of  it  in  his  dedication  to 
Artemis  Aristoboule,  and  though  another  goddess  is  named, 
it  is  Themis — an  equivalent,  as  said  distinctly  by  Prometheus, 
of  Gaia,  the  2  Earth,  and  '  known  by  many  another  name,' — 
the  goddess  of  the  Lycomidae,  to  whom  Themistocles  most 
probably  owed  his  own.  There  is  a  pertinence  here  which 
confirms  my  rejection  of  a  criticism  that  condemns  the  line  as 
spurious  chiefly  because  too  significant. 

I  am  even  inclined  to  recover  from  the  story  of  Prome- 
theus a  hint  for  history,  that  as  the  Titan  deserted  his  ori- 
ginal and  natural  party,  alarmed  and  disgusted  by  their 
inability  to  recognise  the  new  tactics — of  craft  not  vio- 
lence— required  in  a  new  contest  against  younger  3  powers, 
so  Themistocles  may  have  entered  politics  like  many  a  new  man 

1  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  18.  a  Il>.  209,  210;  Welcker,  Aetch.  Trilogie,  p.  40. 

*  Aeach.  Prom.  V.  206. 


xxvi.]  THE  PROMETHEUS  BOUND.  "331 

since,  by  attaching  himself  to  a  party  from  which  he  ultimately 
slipped  away  as  unmanageably  wrong-headed,  or  when  it  had 
served  his  purpose.  And  the  parallel  goes  on ;  the  original 
spirit  finds  his  energies  cramped  in  the  new  connection  as  in 
the  old.  Those  who  conquered  power  by  the  aid  of  fore- 
thought 1  personified,  turning  incontinently  to  the  distribution 
amongst  relatives,  of  functions  and  offices,  the  government  of 
the  upper  and  the  under  world,  the  land  and  sea,  neglected 
— would  even  gladly  have  destroyed — poor  human-kind,  the 
unprovided,  miserable  2  demus.  Prometheus  alone  opposed ;  he 
secured  for  low  mortals  a  share  of  higher  privileges,  especially 
the  use  of  fire,  a  franchise  that  finally  assured  them  from 
annihilation,  though  it  made  their  benefactor  an  object  of 
oligarchical  and  tyrannous  vindictiveness. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  in  this,  as  indeed  in  any  case  of  the 
kind,  to  ascribe  to  the  poet  an  intention  to  run  an  exact  and 
proper  parallel :  it  would  be  enough  for  him  to  set  in  action 
before  his  audience  all  the  motives  that  they  themselves  were 
most  familiar  with,  all  the  passions  they  had  recently  excited 
or  indulged.  Themistocles  had  as  much  cause  as  Prometheus 
to  declaim,  and  it  is  consistent  with  his  character  that  declaim 
he  did,  against  the  ingratitude  of  the  political  organism  which 
he  had  reconstructed,  whether  chargeable  on  his  own  parti- 
cular party  or  not ;  and  we  might  think  it  was  the  Athenian 
himself  whom  we  hear  speaking  with  the  proud  and  con- 
temptuous tones  that  resound  from  the  mask  of  the  fettered 
Titan.  When  Prometheus  tells  of  his  services  to  men  in 
instituting  the  arts,  we  are  reminded  how  in  the  earlier 
Satyric  play  of  Aeschylus,  the  boon  of  fire  brought  by  Pro- 
metheus had  already  once  been  made  directly  the  symbol  of 
the  restoration  of  sacred  and  domestic  hearths,  and  the 
reappearance  of  civilised  society  after  the  barbaric  desolation 
left  behind  by  the  Mede.  In  Athens  and  at  the  Piraeus,  by 

1  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  440.  2  Ib.  228-240. 


332  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

land  and  sea,  Themistocles  had  been  the  main  agent  and 
leading  spirit  in  these  restorations;  he  if  any  man  might 
claim  to  represent  a  new  Prometheus,  as  his  wise  counsels 
had  given  him  pretensions  to  such  title  in  the  war.  The 
Athens  that  rose  up  under  the  superintendence  of  The- 
mistocles, might  well  be  asserted  as  such  an  improvement 
on  the  city  destroyed  by  the  Persians,  as  could  only  be 
paralleled  by  the  change  which  Prometheus  asserts  that 
he  introduced  in  the  habitations  of  previously  exposed  and 
squalid  humanity;  and  the  creation  by  him  of  a  new  port 
and  improvement  of  the  war  ships,  might  as  readily  be  called 
to  mind  by  the  assertion  for  himself  by  Prometheus,  of  the 
invention  of  sailing  l  vessels. 

The  younger  gods,  insolent,  ungrateful,  encroaching,  are 
contrasted  here,  as  in  the  Eumenides,  with  the  elder  Titanic 
powers;  whether  we  care  to  approximate  them  to  the 
newly  established  demus, — already  betraying  the  tendencies 
of  absolute  power  in  an  extreme  democracy,  as  distinctly  as 
they  were  to  be  recognised  by  Aristotle,  indeed  avowed  by 
Cleon  and  the  Athenians  2  themselves, — or  to  the  younger 
generation  of  aristocrats  who  had  discovered  the  secret  of 
acquiring  mastery  over  the  demus.  Prometheus,  Themis-* 
tocles-like,  provoked  the  catastrophe  that  he  risked  at  least 
if  he  did  not  fully  3  anticipate,  and  confident  in  his  prescience, 
master  of  a  secret  that  is  all  his  4  own,  cares  not,  now  that 
it  has  come,  to  avoid  provoking  its  further  violence.  He  has 
seen  two  revolutions,  two  catastrophes  of  powers  in  highest 
places  already,  and  he  knows  that,  but  for  his  besought  in- 
tervention, a  third  must  follow,  more  shameful  still,  and  more 
suddenly  precipitate  than  either.  Jove  himself,  for  all  his 
thunders,  is  helpless  against  6necessity,  of  which  the  course 
is  cognisable  if  not  guided,  not  by  him,  but  by  elder  more 
mysterious  powers,  by  '  the  Triform  Fates  and  daemonian 

1  Ae«ch.  Prom.  V.  467-70.  3  Thucyd.  ii.  63;  iii.  37;  v.  89. 

»  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  268.  •  Ib.  306.  •  lb.  518. 


xxvi.]  THEMISTOCLES—  PROMETHEUS.  333 

^rinnyes,' — whose  plans  and  purposes,  communicated  in  pre- 
ference to  Themis-Gaia,  the  Titanian  mother  of  the  2sufferer, 
only  come  to  Jove  at  second-hand. 

There  is  no  doubt  ample  vindication  in  the  theme,  the  fable 
dramatised,  for  the  episode,  which  is  indeed  not  strictly  an 
episode,  of  lo  ;  lo,  ancestress  of  Hercules,  of  whom  it  is  pro- 
phesied that  he  is  to  be  the  liberator  of  Prometheus,  and 
thus  the  main  instrument  of  ultimate  conciliation ;  lo,  whose 
frenzied  wanderings  under  the  persecution  of  3  Hera  demon- 
strate, like  the  enforced  servitude  of  Hercules  afterwards,  the 
limitation  of  the  power  of  Jove  her  lover,  as  distinctly  as  does 
his  ignorance  of  the  secret  that  is  in  the  keeping  of  Prome- 
theus, his  enemy  and  victim.  But  the  sympathy  of  Prometheus 
with  the  persecuted  Argive  heroine,  and  his  prospect  of  aid 
from  her  demi-god  descendant,  coincide  so  markedly  with  the 
Argive  connections  and  interests  of  Themistocles,  that  we  seem 
reduced  to  choose  between  inferences ;  either  that  Aeschylus 
at  an  early  date  was  cognisant  of  the  advocacy  by  Themis- 
tocles of  the  Argive  alliance,  or  at  a  later  date,  after  the 
alliance  had  become  a  fact,  was  disposed  to  credit  him  with 
having  anticipated  and  prepared  for  it. 

Prometheus  effected  his  main  stroke  of  policy  by  theft,  by 
such  craft  as  Themistocles  was  ever  ready  and  dexterous  to 
resort  to ;  and  both  relied  too  confidently  on  their  capacity  to 
sustain,  or  re-establish  at  least,  as  strong  a  position  as  ever 
after  discovery.  The  Titan  pays  a  penalty  unexpectedly 
severe ;  but  to  him  an  immortal,  with  a  secular  term  before 
him,  the  ages  are  destined  to  bring  back  his  opportunity. 
Mortal  man  fallen  of  necessity  if  he  lays  out  plans  that 
are  on  a  scale  disproportionate  to  the  conditions  of  his  being ; 
events  might  come  round  in  a  decade  or  two  that  would  vin- 
dicate the  sagacious  policy  recommended  by  Themistocles,  and 
did  so,  but  by  that  time  all  hopes  of  restitution  for  himself, 

1  Aeech.  Prom.  V.  511-517.  2  Ib.  874.  3  Ib.  710. 


334  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

chances  of  his  being1  seen  again  with  his  strong  hand  on  the 
helm  of  the  Athenian  state,  were  past  and  over. 

We  are  unfortunately  destitute  of  direct  information  as  to 
the  dramas  that  were  associated  and  composed  with  the  Pro- 
metheus Bound,  no  less  than  of  the  date  of  its  production,  and 
the  field  is  open  for  speculations  that  have  proved  usually  Imt 
vague  and  unfruitful,  as  to  the  moral  or  metaphysical  solu- 
tion that  was  finally  worked  out  by  the  poet.  The  play  as 
we  have  it  breaks  off  upon  a  suspense  as  declared  as  the  first 
part  of  Faust.  In  the  German  play,  however,  a  difficulty  is 
mainly  constituted  by  the  poet's  declared  intention — it  ad- 
mitted of  but  lame  execution — to  exhibit  how  deliberate  seduc- 
tion, followed  by  careless  desertion  for  coarse  debauchery  and 
what  he  does  not  seem  to  perceive  was  brutal  assassination, 
could  contribute  naturally  to  the  development  of  a  gifted  but 
chiefly  intellectual,  into  a  perfect  character.  We  might  be 
well  content  to  leave  Faust,  whose  reappearance  in  a  second 
part  is  an  impertinence,  to  his  companion  Mephistopheles,  but 
scarcely  Prometheus  to  the  vulture.  We  are  fain,  therefore, 
to  make  the  most  of  what  hints  we  can  gather  as  to  the  further 
design  of  Aeschylus,  from  some  fragments  and  notices  of  the 
presumed  sequel,  his  drama  of  '  Prometheus  Released.'  "\Vhen 
all  the  fragments  and  notices  are  taken  together,  the  outcome 
is  not  inconsiderable  as  compared  with  our  disappointment  in 
other  cases. 

The  Chorus  consisted  of  Titans,  who  visit  their  relative, 
now  suffering  under  the  secular  torture  of  the  '  winged  hound 
of  Zeus/  that  daily  descends  to  tear  his  still  renewing  liver. 
But  time  has  brought  round  the  contingency  on  which  the 
victim  of  sympathy  with  the  wretchedness  of  humanity  in 
unprovided  life,  relied  prophetically  for  deliverance.  The 
destined  liberator,  Hercules,  of  mingled  divine  and  human 
origin,  descendant  of  lo  in  the  thirteenth  generation,  and  son 
of  Zeus  himself,  appears  at  last;  the  series  of  labours  by 
which  he  is  to  initiate  the  relief  of  struggling  humanity  is 


xxvi.]  THEOLOGY  OF  AESCHYLUS.  335 

foretold,  and  his  shooting  the  ravening  bird  brings  on  in  con- 
clusion a  general  reconciliation,  of  Prometheus  with  Zeus,  of 
Zeus  with  the  preservation  of  the  once  doomed  and  despised 
race  of  mankind.  A  further  hard  and  apparently  hopeless 
condition  of  which  Hermes  had  given  l  warning,  the  volun- 
tary renunciation  of  the  privilege  of  immortality,  is  fulfilled 
by  the  vicarious  acceptance  of  death  by  the  centaur  Chiron  ; 
the  sentence  of  the  eternal  chain  is  satisfied  by  the  assump- 
tion by  Prometheus  either  of  a  ring  set  with  a  fragment  of 
the  rock,  or  of  a  verdant  crown.  Conceding  now  to  clemency 
what  he  refused  to  compulsion,  he  discloses  his  secret — that  the 
threatened  fatality  awaited  Zeus  in  case  he  yielded  to  his 
passion  and  married  Thetis,  who  was  fated  to  bear  a  son  supe- 
rior to  his  sire.  The  permanence  of  Olympic,  of  cosmical 
order,  is  assured,  when  the  restored  Titan  in  festive  chaplet 
joins  the  assemblage  of  the  gods  at  the  nuptials  of  the  sea- 
goddess  with  the  father  of  Achilles. 

Whether  the  2  tradition  of  the  marriage  of  Zeus  himself 
with  primaeval  Themis  was  combined  with  this  fable,  as  critics 
have  fondly  assumed,  remains  more  than  uncertain,  for  informa- 
tion fails  entirely.  In  any  case,  it  must  be  insisted  on  that  the 
dignity  of  Zeus,  relatively  either  to  Titans  or  to  man,  cannot 
by  any  ingenuity  be  rescued  as  the  ideal  of  supreme  divinity. 
Aeschylus,  even  like  Homer  before  him,  whom  he  owned  as 
his  great  exemplar,  treats  the  lord  of  Olympus  but  as  a 
representative  of  humanity  with  powers  inconceivably  en- 
hanced, yet  only  in  respect  of  death  exempt  from  the  inhe- 
rent weakness  of  humanity.  In  passion  and  in  ignorance,  in 
hesitation  and  indiscretion,  in  his  liability  to  be  vexed  and 
thwarted  by  powers  not  only  superior  but  inferior,  the  con- 
ditions and  qualities  of  humanity  are  mirrored,  and  even  of 
necessity  exaggerated  by  scale  and  contrast.  To  Zeus  himself, 
as  to  the  demigod  and  Titan,  is  assigned  the  same  invincible 

1  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  1029.  2  Pindar,  Hymn.  2, 


336  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

consciousness  of  freedom  of  will  that  is  part  of  human  nature, 
but  withal  the  same  half-acknowledged  and  contradictory 
sense  of  its  exercise  under  permission;  the  relation  of  this 
consciousness  to  the  ever-intrusive  conviction  of  a  power  ex- 
istent somewhere  that  must  guide — in  any  case  how  myste- 
riously! — what  seems  an  independent  or  a  drifting  1bark,  is 
withdrawn,  and  surely  with  no  unreverential  feeling,  with  no 
unreasonable  humility,  from  the  ken  and  scrutiny  of  preciser 
definition. 

In  Aeschylus  we  find  the  consciousness  above  all,  and  fre- 
quently the  unequivocal  expression,  of  the  noblest  ideal  of 
divine  attributes,  of  the  Divinity  as  the  supreme  creative 
and  controlling  energy,  the  centre  of  all  material  forces,  and 
no  less  of  the  highest  moral  power  and  of  presiding  intelli- 
gence, which  gives  the  rule  of  justice  as  the  single  norm  of 
reward  and  punishment,  and  yet  with  an  ultimate  appeal  to 
indulgence  and  mercifulness.  That  this  loftier  ideal  is  from 
time  to  time  confused  with  the  agencies  of  a  plurality  of  gods, 
or  with  such  a  defective  personality  as  the  poetic  Zeus,  is  an 
inconsistency  that  runs  through  all  Greek  poetry,  and  was 
not  easily  escaped  even  by  Greek  philosophers ;  but  the  in- 
consistency tended  to  become  gradually  less  obtrusive,  and  it 
did  not  hinder  the  development  of  that  sense  of  the  unity  of 
providential  control  of  the  world  of  matter,  of  life,  of  intelli- 
gence, of  conscience,  which  is  the  essence  of  monotheism,  and 
towards  which  the  poetry  of  Aeschylus  still  doubtless  marks  a 
most  important  stage  of  advance. 

That  this  drama,  then,  must  needs  have  been  suggestive  to 
the  original  Athenian  audience,  of  recurring  applications  to 
party  conflicts  and  impending  political  difficulties,  it  seems  to 
me  impossible  to  doubt;  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  poet 
elevated  his  theme  far  above  the  dignity  of  the  most  pregnant 
embodiment  of  contemporary  passion,  by  touching  sympathies 

1  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  513. 


xxvi.]  THE  FABLE  OF  PROMETHEUS.  337 

that  are  common  to  all  reflecting  mankind.  The  exciting 
interests  of  a  day  are  partly  attached  to  and  partly  absorbed 
in  a  larger  reference  that  is  true  for  all  men,  true  for  all  time, 
and  that  is  found  accordingly  to  be  conspicuously  paralleled 
in  literature  of  far  other  genius  among  very  contrasted  popu- 
lations. The  Prometheus  of  Aeschylus  is  still  in  the  main 
the  Titan  of  Hesiod,  of  the  poet  who  confronts  the  most 
salient  and  perplexing  contrasts  of  life  in  the  simplicity  of 
earlier  days,  and  embodies  in  mythus  the  cruder  explanation 
of  men  upon  whom  they  came  with  the  surprise  of  novelty. 
In  Hesiod  also  we  have  an  equivalent  in  forms  of  Hellenic 
mythology,  of  those  opening  chapters  of  Hebrew  story  which, 
before  it  narrows  down  to  the  fortunes  of  a  family  or  a  tribe, 
regard  humanity  under  its  largest  aspects,  and  with  a  scope 
as  wide  as  it  was  destined  to  recur  to  and  resume  at  last  before 
its  canon  closed.  That  man  should  be  so  low  and  yet  BO  high 
is  the  fundamental  perplexity  in  both  narratives;  so  seem- 
ingly neglected  or  deserted,  and  withal  so  manifestly  highly 
endowed ;  possessed  of  faculties  which  in  their  limitless  capa- 
city of  development  are  godlike,  and  yet  exposed  by  this  very 
possession  to  evils  from  which  the  lower  animals,  who  have  so 
much  of  life  in  common  with  him,  seem  happily  exempt. 
'  Unaccommodated  man '  is  below  the  level  of  the  brutes  in 
equipment  for  commonest  self-preservation ;  his  existence  is 
only  endurable,  or  indeed  entirely  possible,  by  the  opportunity 
of  art  and  knowledge ;  these  save  him,  but  only  save  him  at 
first  as  the  veriest  wretch ;  and  are  themselves  dependent  on 
that  faculty  of  looking  before  and  after  which  distinguishes 
him  from  the  brutes  indeed,  and  how  gloriously !  but  at  the 
same  time  gives  opening  for  the  most  poignant  of  sufferings, 
for  all  the  agonies  of  fear  and  doubt,  from  which  the  brutes 
are  exempt.  Endowments  which  however  dignified  are  still 
the  main  conditions  of  human  labour  and  human  grief, 
seemed  to  declare  themselves  as  no  rightful  apanage,  and 
their  consequences  too  closely  resembled  penalties  and  punish- 


338       .  HISTORY  OF  GREECE, 

ments,  not  to  have  been  acquired  at  first  only  by  breach  of 
law ;  and  if  so,  how  not  then  by  aid  and  suggestion  of  some 
ally  of  intellectual  subtlety  superior  to  primeval  man. 

The  Greek  mythus  ascribes  the  rescue  of  foredoomed  man  to 
Prometheus,  the  genius  of  Forecast,  to  whom  he  owed  the 
command  of  fire,  chief  instrument  of  the  useful  arts ;  who 
even  qualified  the  direst  consequence  of  the  power  of  antici- 
pating evil,  by  implanting  in  his  breast  the  germ  of  Hope 
independent  of,  and  even  indestructible  by  *  reason.  But  such 
wresting  of  a  privilege  for  man  from  a  grudging  divinity, 
involved  difficulty  in  the  first  instance  as  to  the  attributes 
of  the  divinity,  and  then  as  to  a  reconciliation  consistently 
with  man's  retention  of  the  illicitly  obtained  advantage.  Of 
a  problem  accepted  in  so  crude  a  form  the  solution  could 
scarcely  be  less  crude,  and  the  mythologist  only  escapes 
from  his  self-made  dilemma  by  resort  to  a  quibble,  or  a 
metaphor,  or  a  symbol.  Poetical  purpose  demanded  that  these 
should  be  clothed  in  graceful  poetical  forms,  and  so  the  trage- 
dian soothes  at  last  by  a  pleasing  apology  for  satisfaction,  the 
distress  that  he  had  taken  in  the  first  instance  little  pains  to 
moderate ;  even  when  wilder  agitation  subsides,  he  of  neces- 
sity and  not  unwillingly  leaves  over  some  natural  awe  at^the 
still  abiding  enigma  of  human  life ;  but  awe  not  unallied 
with  hope  from  the  intimation  that  beyond  these  contradic- 
tions and  controversies  there  exists  in  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse a  remoter  but  a  comprehensive  and  an  over-ruling 
influence  that  will  bring  all  right  at  last. 

1  Aesch.  Prom.  V.  250. 


CHAPTER     XXVII. 

THE    FIRST    CONTUMACY    OF   ATHENIAN   ALLIES. — ADMINISTRATION 

OF   CIMON. 

B.C.  465  ;  01.  78.  3-4. 

THE  adventures  of  Themistocles,  from  the  commencement 
of  his  flight  till  he  found  safety,  protection,  and  honour  at 
the  court  of  the  Great  King,  are  related  with  a  fulness  of 
romantic  details  that  enticed  the  attention  of  the  historians 
from  larger  public  affairs,  and  cover  pages  it  must  be  said, 
somewhat  disproportionately,  when  we  consider  what  has 
been  omitted.  The  story  to  the  extent  that  it  is  unques- 
tionable is  so  extraordinary,  that  we  are  scarcely  entitled  to 
challenge  embellishment  on  the  score  of  mere  marvellousness, 
and  for  once  the  cheap  criticism,  which  in  its  keen  pursuit  of 
the  '  unhistorical '  so  willingly  erases  the  unlikely  from  his- 
tory, must  own  itself  foiled.  Read  it  how  we  will,  only  when 
we  stumble  over  a  positive  contradiction  can  we  be  certain 
that  one  version  must  be  false;  and  even  then  no  mere 
balance  of  general  probabilities  will  determine  with  certainty 
which  ought  to  give  way.  The  tale  seems  to  have  been  told 
and  retold,  like  that  of  Charles  the  Second  fugitive  from 
Worcester,  or  of  the  young  Pretender  after  Culloden,  and 
listened  to,  if  not  with  sympathy  of  the  same  kind,  with  all 
that  Greeks  were  so  capable  of  feeling  for  dexterity  and 
courage. 

Even  Thucydides  quits  larger  history  and  condensed  reflec- 
tion for  personal  anecdote,  when  he  relates  how  the  most 

z  2 


340  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

brilliant  of  Greek  careers  came  to  an  end  only  one  degree 
less  unhappily  and  disgracefully  for  Greece  than  that  of 
Pausanias. 

There  was  one  tradition  that  told  how,  when  it  was  no 
longer  safe  for  him  to  remain  at  Corcyra,  the  victor  of 
Xerxes  crossed  over  to  Sicily,  to  Hiero,  and  there  parodied 
the  mad  schemes  of  Pausanias,  with  a  proposal  to  marry  a 
daughter  of  the  Syracusan  tyrant,  and  help  him  to  the  sub- 
jugation of  central  Greece.  Such  a  story  only  represents  the 
conjectures  of  later  time  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  direction  of 
his  flight,  and  a  likely  field  for  employment  of  his  talents  and 
resources.  Hiero  was  already  dead  (467  B.C.),  and  his  dynasty 
was  dropping  to  ruin  ;  otherwise  Themistocles  might  not  have 
shunned  his  court  out  of  apprehension  as  to  lingering  rancour 
for  his  opposition  at  the  Olympic  festival.  His  political 
friends  had  failed  in  power  at  least,  if  not  good-will,  to 
protect  him  from  their  common  enemies ;  he  was  now  wound 
up  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  his  personal  or  political 
enemies,  and  to  appeal  to  their  credulousness,  or  generosity 
or  interests,  to  refuse  to  sacrifice  him  even  to  friends  of  their 
own.  Doubling  on  his  pursuers  he  passed  over  to  Epirus,  to 
the  seat  of  Admetus,  king  of  the  Molossians,  whose  nobler 
nature  he  was  prepared  to  confide  in,  though  in  his  day  of 
power  he  had  opposed  him  also  in  some  negotiations, — very 
probably  connected  with  the  dissensions  of  Corcyra  and 
Corinth  as  to  territories  on  the  mainland, — which  had  been 
referred  to  arbitration  at  Athens.  His  residence  here  seems 
to  have  continued  for  some  months ;  and  here  he  may  have 
had  hope  to  remain  unmolested,  if  it  be  true  that  at  this 
time  he  was  joined  by  his  wife  and  children  from  :  Athens. 
But  again  the  strongest  pressure  of  demands  and  threats  was 
applied  by  the  Lacedaemonians  upon  his  generous-minded 
host,  through  envoys  of  high  distinction.  Admetus,  however, 

1  Pint.  Them. 


xxvii.]  THEMISTOCLES  IN  EPIRUS.  341 

declared  himself  bound  to  protect  his  guest  by  the  most  strin- 
gent national  sanctions  of  hospitality ;  for  Themistocles  had 
claimed  and  appealed  to  them  in  a  form  which  in  that  region 
admitted  of  no  denial — prostrate  on  his  hearth  as  a  suppliant, 
and  holding  in  his  arms  the  child  of  the  house.  Whatever 
might  be  said  or  thought, — that  Phthia  the  wife  of  Admetus 
had  really  in  the  absence  of  her  husband  compassionated  the 
persuasive  Athenian,  whose  command  over  the  sympathies 
of  women  seems  always  assumed  to  be  unfailing,  and  in- 
structed him  in  the  formula  and  ministered  the  opportunity, 
or  that  Admetus  himself  had  suggested  the  ceremony  to 
supply  the  pretext, — the  difficulty  was  the  same ;  there  was 
still  no  sign  of  it  yielding  to  any  increased  urgency,  when  it 
was  found  that  Themistocles  had  again  disappeared,  and  the 
clue  to  the  course  of  his  retirement  was  broken. 

In  the  meantime  the  untiring  and  unresisted  activity  by 
which  Athens  was  gradually  wearying  her  confederates  into 
willingness  to  commute  maritime  service  and  even  equipment 
for  money  payments,  the  rigour  with  which  these  were  ex- 
acted, and  the  general  imperiousness  with  which  she  com- 
ported herself  in  administration  by  assumptions  injurious  to 
the  dignity  of  autonomy,  were  on  the  point  of  inducing  colli- 
sions premonitory  of  a  change  in  history.  Her  authority  was 
to  be  almost  simultaneously  repudiated  by  the  two  important 
islands,  north  and  south,  of  Thasos  and  Naxos.  These  are 
the  first  assertions  of  a  right  of  secession  of  confederates  from 
a  qualified  union,  which  might  now  seem  from  the  inactivity 
of  Persia  to  have  answered  its  purpose,  and  to  be  maintained 
for  little  else  than  to  aggrandise  a  power  which  threatened  to 
be  quite  as  oppressive,  or  certainly  more  arbitrary  than  under 
the  changed  circumstances  would  be  quietly  endured. 

The  discontent  of  Thasos  was  brought  to  a  head  by  an 
extension  which  was  given  about  this  time  to  the  establish- 
ment on  the  Strymon,  that  had  been  maintained  by  the  Athe- 
nians ever  since  they  wrested  Eion  from  the  Persians,  after  a 


342  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

difficult  siege.  They  despatched  a  colony  (465  B.C.)  consisting 
of  10,000  settlers,  Athenians  and  general  volunteers,  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  into  occupation  a  very  favourable  position 
about  five-and-twenty  stadia  up  the  river,  where  it  issues 
from  a  lake,  and  which  at  the  time  was  in  the  possession  of 
the  Edonian  Thracians.  The  name  of  the  site,  the  Nine  Ways, 
— Ennea  Hodoi, — indicates  its  importance  as  commanding  the 
communications  between  the  fertile  plains  oP  Thrace,  the  dis- 
trict Phyllis  to  the  east,  and  Macedonia  and  the  Chalcidic 
peninsulas  westward.  It  was  here  that  Aristagoras,  thirty- 
two  yeafs  before,  had  endeavoured  to  found  an  independent 
settlement,  and  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  turbulent  and  mis- 
chievous life.  A  main  temptation  for  the  Athenians  consisted 
in  the  riches  of  the  adjacent  gold  mines,  which  after  being 
worked  for  centuries  remained  still  unexhausted,  and  were  to 
continue  so  to  reward  still  more  richly  the  energetic  adminis- 
tration of  Philip  of  Macedon.  The  precise  form  of  these  gold 
deposits  does  not  seem  to  be  recorded  or  explored  in  modern 
times ;  but  the  Athenians  had  appetising  experience  of  the 
profitableness  of  silver  mines  as  worked  at  Laurium  by  slave 
labour — -the  machinery  of  the  ancients — for  these  had  been  to 
her  the  equivalents  as  a  basis  of  prosperity  of  the  coal  and 
iron  deposits  of  England.  Thrace  also  had  its  silver  mines, 
and  no  bait  for  industry  or  for  adventurous  rapine  is  more 
stimulative  of  popular  greed  than  pure  metallic  riches.  The 
Thasians  seem  to  have  shared  the  advantages  of  these  mines, 
in  harmony  if  not  in  regulated  partnership,  with  the  Thracians, 
before  the  Persians  interfered,  and  not  unnaturally  expected 
and  claimed  to  re-enter  upon  all  their  privileges  after  their 
expulsion.  It  was  not  so  however  that  the  Athenians  inter- 
preted their  rights  ;  the  right  of  conquest  has  been  willingly 
substituted  many  a  time  since  and  down  to  our  own  days, 
for  the  more  modest  claims  of  reward  for  rescue,  after 
honourable  rescue  has  served  its  purpose  as  a  pretext  for 
interference.  If  the  protests  of  Thasos  were  disregarded,  the 


xxvii.]  DISAFFECTION  AT  THASOS.  343 

Thracians  who  were  ousted  at  Ennea  Hodoi  were  not  likely 
to  be  treated  with  more  delicacy  in  further  operations,  and  it 
was  not  long1  before  the  smouldering  enmities  burst  out  into 
flame  on  both  sides. 

At  the  same  time,  as  if  in  sympathy  and  probably  not 
without  some  intercommunication,  discontent  was  coming  to 
a  head  at  another  centre.  Naxos,  the  largest  of  the  Cyclades, 
and  renowned  for  its  productiveness,  especially  of  wine, — as 
appropriately  expressed  in  the  mythic  encounter  on  its  shores 
of  Dionysus  and  Ariadne, — had  early  connection  with  Athens 
and  a  political  story  in  many  respects  similar.  Here  again,  as 
so  often  elsewhere,  the  circumstances  of  unquestioned  later 
intercourse  go  some  way  to  vindicate  a  much  earlier  mythus 
as  springing  from  a  radical  fact ;  and  the  visit  of  the  truant 
Theseus  on  his  return  from  Crete  matches  with  the  notice  of 
Herodotus,  that  the  natives  of  Naxos,  as  also  of  Ceos,  were 
lonians  of  Athenian  descent.  Aristotle  quotes  Lygdamis  of 
1  Naxos  as  an  example  of  the  oligarch  who  becomes  a  tyrant 
by  taking  up  the  cause  of  a  demus,  glad  of  any  leader,  against 
his  own  2  class.  His  rule  seems  to  have  been  shaken  off  like 
that  of  Peisistratus  at  Athens,  by  whom  on  his  recovery  of 
power,  and  after  a  victory  over  the  Naxians,  he  was  reinstated, 
and  whom  he  requited  afterwards  by  aid  in  men  and  money 
to  accomplish  his  own  third  and  final  3  restoration. 

A  parallel  fate  still  attends  the  Naxian  tyrant  when  the 
Spartans,  after  expelling  the  Peisistratids  from  Athens,  put  an 
end  to  his  authority  also,  and  re-established  their  favourite 
and  avowed  form  of  government,  an  4  oligarchy. 

About  500  B.C.  the  demus  of  Naxos  gains  the  ascendant 
and  expels  the  leaders  of  the  party  of  the  so-called  '  Sub- 
stantial '  men  (5  avbpes  T&V  Tra%fa>v),  who  apply  forthwith  to 
Aristagoras,  the  despot  under  Persia  at  Miletus,  and  in 
concert  with  him  invite  the  interference  of  the  Persians. 

1  Pol.  v.  5.  i.  2  Athenaeus,  348.  3  Herod,  i.  64. 

4  Plut.  de  Mali(j.  21.  5  Herod,  v.  30. 


344  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

We  hear  on  this  occasion  a  glowing  and  somewhat  mar- 
vellous account  of  the  power  and  prosperity  of  the  island ; 
Paros,  Andros,  and  others  of  the  Cyclades,  are  dependent  on 
it ;  it  is  wealthy  in  money  and  slaves,  has  a  considerable  fleet 
of  long  vessels,  and  can  muster  8,000  heavy-armed  men,  as 
large  a  force  as  Athens  sent  to  Plataea.  Such  a  repre- 
sentation of  power  corresponds  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
armament,  200  vessels  with  a  large  force  of  Persians  and 
lonians,  which  we  read  was  assigned  by  the  satrap  Arta- 
phernes  for  the  expedition.  A  surprise  was  intended  but 
failed;  the  Naxians  were  found  to  have  withdrawn,  with  all 
their  transportable  property  and  abundant  victual,  within 
their  walls,  prepared  to  stand  a  prolonged  siege.  They  had, 
in  fact,  received  timely  warning  by  contrivance  of  the  Persian 
commander  himself,  the  same  Megabates  whom  Pausanias 
afterwards  and  as  it  seems  in  consequence  mistrusted,  who 
had  quarrelled  with  Aristagoras  on  a  point  of  discipline  and 
authority  in  the  conduct  of  the  J  expedition.  A  siege  of 
four  months'  duration  consumed  the  funds  of  both  the  Per- 
sians and  the  Greek  adventurers,  and  was  then  given  up, 
the  exiles  being  left  behind  to  do  the  best  they  might,  with 
the  aid  of  some  fortifications  constructed  for  them. 

The  repulse  was  remembered  and  revenged  by  Datis  and 
Artaphernes,  who  on  their  way  to  Euboea  and  Marathon, 
490  B.C.,  burnt  the  city  and  its  temples,  and  carried  off 
as  captives  all  who  had  not  taken  timely  refuge  in  the 
mountains.  After  this  warning  all  the  Cyclades  except  the 
westernmost,  Cythnus,  Seriphus,  Siphnus,  gave  earth  and 
water,  and  contributed  to  the  fleet  of  Xerxes,  the  Parians 
only  holding  aloof  from  both  sides  to  watch  the  result ; 
Naxos  was  controlled  by  a  Medising  faction,  but  could  now 
only  make  the  poor  contribution  of  four  ships,  and  these  were 
carried  over  to  the  Greeks  by  their  commander  Democritus. 

1  Herod,  v.  34. 


xxvu. J  NAXOS  IN  REVOLT.  345 

It  is  probable  enough  that  the  island  nevertheless  did  not 
escape  some  severity  when  visited  afterwards  by  the  fleet  of 
the  victors. 

Still  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  any  treatment  could 
have  goaded  the  islanders  into  defying  the  power  of  Athens 
as  now  developed,  and  with  all  the  confederation  at  command, 
unless  they  had  encouragement  to  look  further  for  support. 
It  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted,  in  fact,  that  the  ancient  leaven  of 
oligarchical  Medism  insensibly  recovering  was  again  at  work, 
and  that  the  expected  aid  was  to  come  from  the  Persian  fleet, 
which  now  after  a  long  interval  appears  again  reinforced  and 
reorganised.  We  are  thus  conducted  to  the  further  inference 
that  the  plans  which  had  been  just  matured  by  Pausanias  in 
concert  with  Persia,  when  his  treason  was  discovered,  had 
been  arranged  to  take  effect  by  a  combination  at  this  very 
point. 

Whatever  was  the  offence,  declared  contumacy  in  respect  of 
subsidies  or  suspected  intrigue  with  the  barbarians,  Naxos 
was  attacked  by  the  Athenians  as  in  revolt,  besieged  and 
ultimately  taken,  after  what  length  of  resistance  is  not  stated, 
perhaps  by  surprise  or  l  storm.  This,  says  Thucydides,  was 
the  first  of  the  allied  cities  that  were  successively  reduced  to 
subjection  in  contravention  of  compact  (impa  TO  Ka0eorr/Kos), 
— as  if  in  his  opinion  the  punishment  was  unfairly  strained 
beyond  the  provocation — a  result  ensuing  for  the  most  part 
on  refusals  of  assessed  quotas  of  money  or  ships,  or  in  certain 
instances,  of  crews  for  service.  The  forfeiture  of  autonomy 
by  the  Naxians  probably  involved  in  the  same  penalty  the 
smaller  of  the  Cyclades  that  had  retained  connection  with 
them ;  and  signs  of  eagerness  on  the  part  of  Athens  to 
make  the  most  of  a  welcome  opportunity  may  have  alarmed 
communities  who  had  otherwise  little  sympathy  with  Naxos. 

Whatever  the  progress  of  the  siege,  the  presence  of  a  large 

1  Aristoph.  Vesp.  354. 


346  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

fleet  was  not  required  after  the  investment  was  completed  ; 
and  though  Cimon  may  have  commenced  the  siege,  he  would 
be  at  liberty  during  its  progress  to  proceed  in  search  of  the 
Persian  fleet,  respecting  which  information  had  been  re- 
ceived, and  which  it  must  be  supposed  the  Naxians  were 
still  expecting. 

The  brilliant  exploit  that  followed  is  thus  related  in  the 
summary  of  xThucydides.  'After  this  attack  on  Naxos, 
occurred  the  land  fight  and  naval  fight  of  the  Athenians  and 
allies  against  the  Medes,  at  the  river  Eurymedon  in  Pam- 
phylia,  when  the  Athenians  under  command  of  Cimon,  son  of 
Miltiades,  gained  a  victory  in  both  on  the  same  day,  and  cap- 
tured and  destroyed  Phoenician  triremes  to  the  number  of 
200  in  all.'  Another  authority  which,  if  genuine  as  it  appears 
to  be,  is  still  closer  to  the  time,  is  a  metrical  inscription— of 
dedicated  spoils,  says  Diodorus,  but  apparently  sepulchral — 
that  has  come  down  to  us  in  several  copies  with  but  slight 
variation.  The  double  achievement  is  here  described  as  the 
slaughter  of  many  Medes  on  land,  and  the  capture  or  vic- 
torious destruction  of  100  Phoenician  ships  with  their  full 
complement  of  men  in  the  open  sea  (ei>  7re\ayet). 

In  both  these  statements  it  will  be  observed  that  the  land . 
victory  is  mentioned  first;  this  is  of  importance  when  we 
come  to  examine  and  compare  the  more  detailed  state- 
ments of  Plutarch  and  Diodorus,  both  of  which,  but  the 
latter  especially,  seem  made  up  out  of  earlier  conflicting 
narratives. 

The  original  fleet  of  Cimon  consisted  of  200  Athenian 
triremes,  constructed  with  all  the  latest  improvements  and 
most  efficiently  manned.  To  Themistocles  were  due  the 
changes  that  had  increased  their  speed  on  the  one  hand, 
and  then  the  important  qualification  of  handiness  in  evolu- 
tions, facility  in  turning,  dependent  partly  on  form,  partly  on 

1  Thuc.  i.  ioo. 


xxvii.]  CIMON  BEFORE  PHASELIS.  347 

drill  of  the  rowers,  that  were  together  essential  to  advan- 
tageous manoeuvring  in  action.  Ciraon  himself  had  endea- 
voured to  combine  with  these  a  more  ample  accommodation 
for  a  fighting  crew  by  a  greater  breadth  of  beam,  and  the 
addition  of  a  certain  gangway  to  the  decks,  apparently  to 
afford  passage  for  hoplites  from  one  end  of  the  vessel  to  the 
other  without  interfering  with  the  l  oarsmen.  With  this 
armament  he  proceeded  along  the  coast  from  Ionia  south- 
ward and  eastward,  expelling  Persian  garrisons  wherever  he 
found  them  established  in  the  maritime  cities  of  Caria  and 
Lycia ;  some  of  these  were  purely  Greek  and  others  of  mixed 
population,  or  at  least  bilingual,  from  commerce  and  inter- 
course with  such  surrounding  alien  populations,  however 
Hellenised  in  manners,  as  the  Lycian  Tramilae.  Every  new 
city  thus  acquired  for  the  confederacy  brought  in  of  course  an 
addition  to  the  Qopos — an  apportioned  rate  of  subsidy.  Ac- 
cording to  Plutarch  his  immediate  starting-place  was  Cnidus, 
on  the  Triopian  promontory,  but  that  the  Cnidians  did  not 
now  for  the  first  time  join  the  confederacy  is  proved,  interest- 
ingly, as  we  have  seen  by  their  dedication  at  Delphi.  The 
only  resistance  in  the  course  of  these  operations  that  we  read 
of  as  of  any  importance,  occurred  at  Phaselis,  a  Lycian  city 
on  the  western  shore  of  the  great  Pamphylian  gulf.  The 
citizens  were  chiefly  Greek,  but  nevertheless  well  content 
with  the  share  of  quiet  and  prosperity  that  they  were  in 
possession  of  under  Persia,  and  declined  either  to  revolt  or 
to  give  reception  to  the  fleet  of  Cimon.  After  the  usual 
preliminary  of  plunder  and  devastation  inflicted  on  the  open 
country,  a  serious  attack  was  at  once  commenced  upon  the 
fortified  city.  Extremities,  which  from  the  temper  of  Cimon 
on  the  occasion — impatient  as  he  was  for  action  elsewhere — 
would  have  been  severe,  were  prevented  by  the  intervention 
of  the  Chian  allies,  who  had  friendly  relations  with  the  city 

1  Plut.  dm.  12. 


348  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

from  of  old,  an  interest  sufficiently  explained  by  concern  in 
the  constant  flow  of  commerce  to  and  from  Phoenicia,  as  well 
as  inland,  which  its  harbour  accommodated.  They  mollified 
Cimon,  and  by  shooting-  missives  attached  to  arrows  over  the 
walls  succeeded  in  opening  negotiations,  which  ended  in  the 
wealthy  Phaselitans  agreeing  to  pay  ten  talents  and  to 
commit  themselves  to  a  breach  of  former  connections  by 
joining  actively  in  the  enterprise  against  the  barbarian. 
With  a  fleet  increased  by  these  and  other  allies  to  250  or 
300  vessels,  so  Diodorus  contradicts  himself,  Cimon  now 
sailed  direct  for  the  mouth  of  the  river  Eurymedon,  which 
flowing  southwards  enters  the  sea  at  the  head  of  the  gulf, 
where  both  the  fleet  and  army  of  the  Persians  were  sta- 
tioned. Aryomandes,  son  of  Gobryes,  is  named  as  chief  in 
command,  though  the  fleet  was  under  Tithraustes,  a  base- 
born  son  of  Xerxes,  and  the  army  under  Pherendates  his 
nephew.  Of  the  number  of  their  vessels  there  is  no  account 
to  be  relied  on,  they  were  350  in  the  history  of  Ephorus,  and 
increased  to  600  in  later  authorities;  both  appear  to  be 
grossly  in  excess,  as  collated  with  Thucydides  and  the  in- 
scription, perhaps  even  with  the  notice  that  a  squadron  of 
eighty  Phoenician  vessels  was  still  expected. 

It  was  the  object  of  Cimon  to  force  an  engagement  before 
these  could  join  from  Cyprus,  and  he  pressed  forward  to  the 
attack ;  the  Persians  were  equally  anxious  to  evade  it  and 
retired  into  the  river,  but  finding  that  conflict  was  unavoid- 
able even  there,  were  fain  at  last  to  essay  a  sally  in  con- 
siderable force.  It  is  probable  that  only  a  proportion  of 
their  vessels  were  afloat,  and  in  any  case  the  restricted  space 
put  numbers  at  a  disadvantage;  in  a  very  short  time  they 
lost  heart  and  made  for  shore  in  order  to  disembark  and  gain 
protection  of  the  land  army.  The  retreating  vessels  that 
were  nearest  inshore  discharged  their  crews,  but  of  those 
behind  large  numbers  were  either  captured  or  sunk  with  all 
hands  on  board.  In  this  instance  as  so  many  others,  from 


xxvii.]  BATTLE  OF  THE  EURTMEDON.  349 

the  dependence  of  an  ancient  fleet  upon  a  camp  ashore,  the 
battle  repeats  many  circumstances  of  that  at  Mycale,  which 
no  doubt  furnished  a  model  for  emulation  ;  Cornelius 
Nepos  indeed  confounds  one  with  the  other.  The  easy  vic- 
tory so  far  only  excited  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Greeks, 
and  Cimon,  now  encouraged  by  success  and  the  spirit  of  his 
troops,  disembarked  his  large  force  of  hoplites  and  boldly 
attacked  the  army.  The  contest  however  here  was  vigo- 
rously sustained  by  the  Persians,  who  again  vindicated  the 
courage  that  Herodotus  credits  them  with  in  the  battles  in 
Greece ;  though  again  it  was  no  match  for  the  Athenian  com- 
bination of  superior  arms  with  courage  and  discipline.  The 
victory  of  Cimon  was  at  last  decisive  and  crowned  by  that 
valuable  reward,  the  capture  of  the  Persian  camp,  replete  as 
usual  with  riches,  in  addition  to  prisoners  who  were  little  less 
valuable  for  ransom.  Plutarch  agrees  with  the  inscription 
as  to  a  large  capture  of  prisoners;  Diodorus  records  the 
exaggerations  —  340  ships  taken  and  over  20,000  men 
slain. 

This  compound  conflict  was,  according  to  Plutarch,  the 
double  victory  by  sea  and  on  land  on  the  self-same  day 
which  was  celebrated  as  having  a  point  of  advantage  in  com- 
parison with  Salamis  or  with  Plataea.  He  adds  that  the 
expected  Phoenician  reinforcement  did  not  escape.  Cimon 
had  information  of  their  rendezvous  at  Hydrus  (?  Idyrus  or 
Cyprus) ,  and  was  upon  them  before  they  had  certain  news  of 
the  disaster  of  the  main  force.  To  this  occasion,  if  any- 
where, we  must  assign  the  stratagem  by  which  Diodorus 
relates  that  Cimon  drew  the  enemy  into  the  toils,  approaching 
them  in  the  captured  vessels  of  their  friends  and  with  crews 
disguised  in  barbaric  costume.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  order  in 
which  Polyaenus  introduces  the  stratagem.  Such  a  later 
engagement  may  have  been  the  fight  in  open  sea  of  the 
inscription,  as  distinguished  from  that  which  is  localised  by 
Thucydides  at  the  embouchure  of  the  Eurymedon,  and  with 


350  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

which,  as  so  closely  ensuing,  it  would  afterwards  easily  and 
not  unnaturally  be  confused  and  combined. 

Diodorus  garnishes  his  narrative  of  these  events  with  a 
wealth  of  details  that  would  be  valuable  indeed,  but  that 
they  are  hopelessly  discredited  by  his  blunders  in  geography 
and  time.  He  places  the  expedition  to  the  Eurymedon  years 
before  events  that  we  know  from  Thucydides  preceded  it, 
and  transfers  the  first  battle  by  sea  to  the  coast  of  Cyprus, 
as  also  does  Frontinus,  following  it  up  with  a  night 
attack  on  the  Persian  camp  by  the  Eurymedon,  which 
is  aided  by  a  double  delusion  on  the  part  of  the  barbarians, 
who  mistaking  their  assailants  for  Pisidians  fly  for  refuge  to 
the  falsely  seeming  Phoenician  fleet,  only  to  perish  miserably. 

He  appears  to  have  been  misled  in  part  by  a  false  reading 
of  a  line  of  the  inscription,  which  as  he  gives  it  specifies 
the  deslruction  of  'multitudes  of  Medes,'  not  'on  the  land' 
simply,  as  in  other  copies,  but  '  in  Cyprus.'  This  however 
clears  up  but  a  small  part  of  the  confusion.  Broken  frag- 
ments of  history  may  be  involved  amongst  it,  but  certainly, 
if  we  make  an  attempt  to  disengage  it  as  a  merely  '  tangled 
chain  nothing  impaired  but  all  disordered,'  we  shall  fail 
entirely. 

Victories  so  gained  we  might  expect  to  find  followed  up 
energetically,  and  Cyprus  is  at  hand,  which  before  and  after- 
wards invited  attempts  to  swell  Athenian  power  and  revenue 
at  the  expense  of  Persia ;  operations  however  cease  here 
suddenly ;  a  new  danger  recalls  the  fleet  and  the  commander 
northwards,  a  disaster  of  the  Strymonian  colonists  and  the 
open  defection  of  Thasos.  The  colony  of  10,000  settlers, 
Athenian  and  foreign  volunteers,  represents  an  enterprise  on 
an  enormous  scale  at  its  commencement,  and  probable  plans 
for  still  further  extension.  Pausanias  reckons  it  as  a  third 
Athenian  expedition  that  ranges  with  their  mythical  ad- 
venture with  lolaus  to  Sardinia,  and  their  colonisation  of 
Ionia,  and  we  find  it  rated  along  with  the  vast  armament 


xxvii.]  THE  DISASTER  AT  DRABESCUS.  351 

with  which  Pericles  reduced  Samos,  and  the  still  vaster 
Syracusan  expedition.  The  Thasians  were  threatened  with 
interference  in  their  Continental  emporia  and  l  min.es,  and 
not  only  were  the  Edonian  Thracians  ejected  from  Nine  Ways 
but  an  advance  was  made  inland  as  far  as  Drabescus.  The 
effect  of  this  boldness,  however,  was  to  alarm  and  unite  a 
number  of  tribes,  who  set  upon  the  intruders  unexpectedly; 
a  storm  seems  to  have  been  taken  advantage  of  to  cover  the 

2  surprise,  and  with  such  success  as  to  be  fatal  to  nearly  the 
entire  force.      Then  perished  Sophanes,  son  of  Eutychides, 
who  had  deserved  best  of  all  the  Athenians  at  Plataea,  and 
was  here  in  joint  command  with  Leogrus,  son  of  Glaucon. 
This  crushing-  catastrophe  raised  the  enthusiastic  hopes  of  the 
Thasians,  discontented  as  they  were  and  plotting  already,  for 
the  recovery  of  lost  ground  of  their  own.     The  opportunity 
was  the  more  inviting,  as  they  had  already  been  encouraged 
to   count   upon    that   active    sympathy  at  Sparta  with    the 
repression  of  Athens  which  was  to  develope  afterwards  with 
such  momentous  results.      In  preceding  generations  Sparta 
had  won  the  confidence  of  Hellas  by  her  readiness  to  inter- 
pose for  the  suppression  of  governments  whose  genius  was 
absolutely   opposed   to   her   own,    and    the    same   zeal    with 
which  her  oligarchy  was  credited  in  opposition  to  individual 

3  tyranny,   was  now  looked  to  with   confidence  as  available 
against  an  arbitrary  democracy  that   threatened  still  more 
seriously  to  become  her  enemy  and  rival. 

The  policy  that  Athens  would  apply  to  such  an  emergency 
was  already  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Naxos ;  no  failure  of 
loyal  adherence  to  the  confederacy  as  Athens  chose  to  ad- 
minister it  would  be  admitted  ;  and  an  attempt  to  vindicate 
infringed  liberties  was  to  be  visited  by  their  entire  for- 
feiture. Cimon,  as  might  be  expected,  had  no  difficulty  in 
defeating  the  Thasians  at  sea.  He  captured  or  destroyed  their 

1  Thuc.  i.  ioo.  2  Paus.  i.  29.  4.  3  Herod,  v.  92. 


352  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

fleet  of  thirty-three  l  ships,  and  then,  probably  after  a  land 
engagement  also,  as  Thucydides  mentions  battles,  commenced 
a  blockade,  the  usual  process  of  reducing  a  strongly-fortified 
city ;  and  its  three  years'  duration  in  this  case  argues  not 
only  the  resoluteness  of  the  besieged,  but  the  well-furnished 
premeditation  of  the  revolt. 

1  Plut.  dm,  14. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

THEMISTOCLES    IN    PERSIA. HIS    DEATH. 

IN  the  meantime  if  Persia,  in  consequence  of  this  with- 
drawal of  Cimon,  was  indulged  with  a  respite  from  annoy- 
ance on  the  Greek  frontier,  her  recent  defeats  had  a  reaction 
at  the  centre  that  filled  her  palaces  with  discord  and  blood- 
shed, and  the  life  and  reign  of  Xerxes  came  to  an  end  under 
circumstances  that  affected  the  relations  of  East  and  West  for 
a  considerable  time.  Three  of  his  sons  are  named,  of  whom 
Darius  is  called  the  heir  and  still  but  a  youth  or  a  young 
man,  though  Hystaspes,  two  years  younger  (Ctesias),  is  old 
enough  to  be  entrusted,  according  to  Diodorus,  with  the 
satrapy  of  Bactria  ;  he  makes,  however,  no  further  appearance 
by  name  in  history,  and  Artaxerxes,  the  youngest,  of  an  age 
to  be  referred  to  as  a  boy,  is  assumed  as  the  next  heir  after 
Darius.  Against  the  dynasty  so  represented,  a  plot  is  formed 
by  an  Hyrcanian,  Artabanus,  commander  of  the  royal  guards, 
himself  the  father  of  seven  sons  of  power  and  ability.  His 
immediate  confederate  is  Spamitres  (Ctesias),  or  Mithridates 
(Diodorus),  his  friend,  and,  though  his  relative,  a  eunuch,  who 
was  at  the  head  of  the  domestic  establishment  of  the  palace. 
Possible  apprehensions  apart,  of  which  hints  occur  in  a  various 
account  of  the  catastrophe  that  was  known  to  l  Aristotle, 
there  was  suggestion  enough  for  an  ambitious  man  in  the 

1  Polit.  v.  8. 
A  a 


354  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

observation  of  the  declining  energy  of  a  self-indulgent 
monarch  and  the  declining  reverence  for  a  reign  that  had 
been  marked  by  a  constantly  recurring  series  of  military 
disgraces,  and  had  lost  in  their  course  so  many  of  its  most 
devoted  supporters.  Ill  a  night  of  horror  and  confusion, 
Xerxes  was  murdered  in  his  bed,  and  the  young  Artaxerxes, 
roused  from  sleep  to  hear  that  the  crime  was  due  to  the 
impatient  ambition  of  his  elder  brother  Darius,  beheld  him 
dragged  forth,  vainly  protesting  as  he  was  taxed  with  guiltily 
simulating  sleep,  and  hastily  despatched  on  the  spot.  For 
seven  months  thereafter  Artabanus,  as  regent,  governed  so 
absolutely  as  to  be  admitted  by  l  chronologists  for  that  term 
into  the  series  of  Persian  monarchs. 

Even  so  soon  he  was  prepared  to  take  the  last  step  to 
undisguised  possession  by  the  removal  of  the  youthful  Arta- 
xerxes, relying  especially  on  having  secured,  as  he  believed, 
the  adherence  of  some  malcontent  connections  of  the  royal 
house  in  support  of  his  own  and  his  sons'  influence  with 
the  army. 

Xerxes  had  been  considerably  indebted  to  Megabyzus  for 
the  recovery  of  Babylon,  and  had  rewarded  him  not  only  \vith 
the  golden  2  plinth — or  flat  cylinder  according  to  3Ctesias 
and  as  represented  on  the  Naples  vase — of  ten  talents,  with 
which  Persian  kings  recompensed  the  accepted  responsibility 
of  bold  and  successful  advice,  but  also  with  the  hand  of  his 
daughter  Amytis.  The  dignity  of  the  alliance  was,  however, 
seriously  qualified  by  the  laxity  of  her  manners ;  and  the 
admonitions  of  Xerxes,  when  appealed  to  by  the  exasperated 
husband,  had  been  as  futile  as  might  be  expected,  considering 
the  shamelessness  of  his  own  intrigues.  Even  this  check  \\  as 
removed  by  his  death,  and  the  brooding  jealousy  of  the 
brother-in-law  of  Artaxerxes  marked  him  out  to  Oriental 
sympathies  as  prepared  for  any  extremity  of  revenge,  even 

1  Manetho  ap.  Syncell.  Cf.  Clinton,  p.  314  g.          *  Aelian,  V.  II.  xii.  62. 
3  Cteaias,  p.  117. 


XXVIIL]      THE  ACCESSION  OF  ARTAXERXES.  355 

though  it  ruined  the  dynasty  that  had  exalted  him  only  to 
more   conspicuous  disgrace.     Megabyzus,  however,  Oriental 
husband  as  he  was,  was  still  a  politician,  and  a  politician  of 
insight  and  experience  ;  he  could  estimate  at  their  true  value 
the  oaths  by  which  a  double  traitor  professed  to  bind  him- 
self, and  set  no  more  on  whatever  he  was  invited  to  give  in 
exchange.    On  the  other  hand  he  was  not  himself  without 
military    following    and    influence,  in  aid  of  the    traditions 
of  loyalty  and  the  prestige    of  the  house  of  Darius,  which 
the    misconduct   of  only  one    successor  and  an   interval   of 
twenty  years  had    by  no    means  cancelled.       He  formed  a 
just   appreciation  of  the  fundamental  strength  of  character 
of  Artaxerxes,  young  as  he  was ;  and  for  the  rest,  the  risk 
was  great  either  way,  and  he  could  trust  to  his  own  courage 
and  promptitude  to  turn  the  balance  on  the  side  where  he 
cast  in  his  fortunes.     Artaxerxes  justified  his  confidence,  and 
was  equal  to  taking  part  in  a  counterplot  which,  by  resolutely 
suspending  its  execution  until  the  very  moment  chosen  by 
Artabanus  for  the  crisis  of  his  own,  brought  all  the  leading 
conspirators  within   reach   together.      The    occasion    was    a 
grand   military  muster,  at  which   not  only  the  Regent  but 
three  of  his  sons  were  present, — present  in  arms  and  with 
their    adherents,  but   ignorant   of  the  feelings   with   which 
they  were  watched  by  an  associated  force.       A  tumult,  not 
in  itself  surprising  to  many,   suddenly  arose   in  the   group 
around  the  person  of  Artaxerxes.     The  details  of  the  incident 
of  course  were  variously  related  ;   it  was  even  said  that  it 
began  by  the  king  complaining  of  the  tightness  of  his  body 
armour,  and   proposing   to  try  on   that  of  Artabanus,  who 
proceeded  to  divest  himself  (Justin),  and  unarmed  or  embar- 
rassed in    disarming  was   stabbed  there   and  then  by  Arta- 
xerxes himself.   Avtaxerxes  was  slightly  wounded,  and  Mega- 
byzus  much  more  seriously,  before  the  general  conflict  that 
ensued  ended  in  the  complete  suppression  of  the  conspiracy 
and   the   deaths    of  the    three   sons   of  Artabanus.     In  the 

A  a  2 


356  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

investigation  that  followed,  the  particulars  of  the  first  plot 
came  to  light,  and  the  eunuch  Spamitres  expiated  his  com- 
plicity in  the  murders  of  Xerxes  and  his  eldest  son  by  a 
death  of  prolonged  and  disgusting  l  torture. 

The  date  of  the  death  of  Xerxes  is  one  of  the  most  happily 
certified  points  in  the  chronology  of  these  times,  and  supplies 
a  limit  for  the  dates  of  several  events  in  Greek  history  proper. 
Diodorus  assigns  it  to  the  archonship  of  Lysitheus  (July 
465  B.C.  to  July  464  B.C.),  after  a  reign  of  over  twenty  years. 
It  is  shown  by  2  Clinton,  on  comparison  of  the  canons  of 
the  Persian  kings,  that  it  would  fall  about  the  first  month 
of  that  archon,  and  the  proper  accession  of  Artaxerxes  seven 
months  later,  about  February,  B.C.  464. 

It  was,  according  to  Plutarch,  within  this  interval,  while 
Artabanus  was  still  in  power,  that  Themistocles  arrived  at 
Susa ;  an  assignment  which  is  in  accordance  with  the  siege 
of  Naxos  being  in  progress  when  he  passed  into  Asia,  and 
with  the  revolt  of  Thasos,  which  was  proceeding  in  the  fourth 
year  of  King  Archidamus  of  3  Sparta  (464  B.C.),  being  still 
later,  as  stated  by  Thucydides. 

But  many  of  the  details  inserted  by  Plutarch  as  to  the 
reception  and  demeanour  of  Themistocles  at  the  Persian 
court  and  his  intercourse  with  Artabanus  are  manifestly 
late  inventions  or  hopeless  exaggerations,  connected  as  they 
are  with  the  untrustworthy  accounts  that  told  not  only  of 
his  arrival  at  Susa  but  even  of  his  death  at  Magnesia,  during 
the  life  of  Xerxes.  The  combination  most  in  harmony  with 
the  brief  note  of  Thucydides,  is  that  he  arrived  in  Asia 
during  the  power  or  usurpation  of  Artabanus,  but  did  not 
reach  the  Persian  court  until  after  the  revolution  that  over- 
threw him. 

Such  a  gap  as  intervened  between  his  disappearance  from 
Molottis  and  his  reception  at  Susa,  is  the  very  playground  of 

1  Ctes.  Peri.;  Plut.  Artax.  ii.  16.  *  Clinton,  p.  314,  note  b. 

8  Plut.  dm.  16. 


XXVIIL]  THEMISTOCLES  AT  NAXOS.  357 

conjecture,  but  of  curiosity  also,  which  may  be  trusted  to 
have  gathered  many  facts  that  are  worth  the  gleaning  of 
history.  The  conclusion  of  his  story  is  warning  to  histo- 
rical criticism  not  to  reject  fairly  authorised  tradition,  on 
the  mere  ground  of  its  inconsistency  with  antecedent  proba- 
bility; if  such  a  principle  sufficed  to  guide  through  the 
uncertainties  of  the  past,  there  need  be  little  mystery  for 
us  even  about  thie  future.  He  had  known  how  to  conciliate 
the  warm  zeal  of  two  young  men  of  Lyncestis,  a  district 
between  Macedonia  and  Epirus,  who  from  their  engagement 
in  inland  trade  were  fully  acquainted  with  the  obscure  passes 
and  by-roads  of  the  continent  to  which  he  might  trust  to 
baffle  the  most  vindictive  pursuit.  By  aid  of  their  untiring 
guidance  he  made  his  way  from  sea  to  sea,  not  neglecting,  as 
it  seems,  to  obtain  a  useful  oracle  at  Dodona  on  his  l  way, 
and  arrived  at  Pydna  in  the  Macedonian  territory  of  Alex- 
ander, where  he  took  passage,  in  a  false  name,  on  board  a 
merchant  ship  bound  for  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  Stress 
of  weather  carried  the  vessel  direct  upon  Naxos,  where  the 
Athenians  were  engaged  on  the  siege,  and  where  to  run  in 
would  have  involved  fatal  recognition,  while  it  would  require 
much  to  induce  a  Greek  skipper  to  forego  even  the  rest 
and  refreshment  offered  by  such  an  opportunity,  to  say 
nothing  of  shelter  from  really  dangerous  weather.  Themis- 
tocles  put  himself  at  once  so  far  in  the  man's  power  as  to 
declare  who  he  was  and  what  was  his  jeopardy,  but  appealed 
to  him  at  the  same  time  in  a  manner  to  compel  him  to 
the  required  decision.  He  overawed  him  in  the  first  instance 
by  the  distinct  intimation,  that  to  betray  him  would  be 
fatal  to  himself,  as  the  Athenians  would  be  given  to 
understand  that  his  intention  had  been  to  assist  the  escape 
of  their  enemy  for  a  bribe ;  his  only  chance  of  avoiding  this 
catastrophe  was  to  keep  the  sea  at  any  inconvenience  and 
any  risk,  and  to  permit  no  soul  to  land  till  the  voyage 
1  Plut.  Them.  28. 


358  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

could  be  continued.     When  it  was  quite  clear  that  intimi- 
dation had  done  its  work,  it  was  time  enough  to  clinch  it  by 
a  promise  of  rich  reward,  which  was  afterwards  honourably 
performed.     After  battling-  with  the  weather  and  privations 
for  a  whole   day  and    night,  the   vessel    resumed  its  course 
and   reached   Ephesus.      Asia   had  dangers  of  its   own  for 
the  fugitive,  and  he  was   now   nearer  to  those   who   could 
claim,  it  is   said,  an   immense   reward   of  200  talents   pro- 
claimed by  the  Persian  king   for  the   capture  of  his  most 
mischievous   enemy.      Plutarch    refers  to  the  '  following   of 
Ergo  teles  and  Pythodorus,'  as  to  men  notorious  and  on  the  look- 
out for  him ;  and  about  Cumae,  the  old  station  of  the  Persian 
fleet  after  Sfalamis,   as  if  it  were  still  in  Persian  occupation. 
Xenophon  long  l  after  finds  the   adjacent  towns  under  the 
control  of  descendants  of  Demaratus  and  Gongylus,  to  whom 
the  Persian   had  granted  them  in  reward  for  treachery  to 
Greece.     He  was  in  this  neighbourhood  when  he  moved,  in 
disguise,  inland  to  Aegae,  where  he  had  a  host  Nicogenes,  a 
man  of  vast  possessions  in  Aeolis  ;  so  vast  indeed  that  Diodorus 
seems  to  confound  him  in  consequence,  under  the  name  of  2  Lysi- 
theides,  with  the  magnificent  and  ill-requited  host  of  Xerxes, — 
he  may  have  been  a  descendant, — whose  tale  is  told  by3  Hero- 
dotus.     With   resolution   that   astonished   and   alarmed   his 
friend,  he   proposed  to   avail   himself  of  his  intimacy  with 
Persians  of  position,  to  prosecute  the  plan  of  presenting  him- 
self at  Susa  ;  and  accordingly,  in  company  with  his  *  friend, 
he  started  on  the  journey  in  a  litter,  which  was  closely  cur- 
tained and  jealously  watched  as  the  conveyance  of  an  Ionian 
female  destined  for  the  harem  of  a  Persian  magnate.  Besides 
hints  of  direct  personal  introductions,  we  have  in  Thucydides 
notes  of  a  missive  said  to  be  addressed  by  him  to  the  Great 
King,  which  reappear  in  Plutarch  paraph  rased  as  a  5  speech. 
He  represents  that  he  had  strictly  limited  all  the  mischief 

1  Xen.  Hell.  iii.  1.4.  a  Diod.  xi.  56.  •  Herod,  vii.  79-38. 

4  Thucyd.  i.  137 ;  Diod.  xi.  56.  5  Plut.  Them.  28. 


xxviii.]  THEMISTOCLES  AT  SUSA.  359 

that  he  had  wrought  against  his  father,  Xerxes,  to  the  re- 
quirements of  self-defence  ;  and  as  soon  as  these  were  satisfied 
had  seized  the  earliest  opportunities  to  do  him  all  the  service 
in  his  power.  He  claimed  a  balance  of  gratitude  as  due  to 
him  for  secret  information  at  Salamis,  and  for  his  hindrance 
— which  Thucydides  takes  occasion  to  say  was  none  of  his — 
of  the  disruption  of  the  Hellespont  bridge.  It  is  on  this  same 
account  of  friendly  disposition  to  Persia,  that  he  has  now 
been  driven  into  exile ;  he  comes  prepared  and  able  to  render 
signal  service,  and  only  solicits  the  suspense  of  a  year,  that  by 
the  acquisition  of  the  Persian  language  he  may  be  enabled  to 
do  full  justice  to  his  plans. 

The  reception  of  Greek  fugitives  was  the  common  policy  of 
the  Persian  court,  on  the  usual  principle  of  all  powers  that 
seek  for  pretexts,  or  not  hesitating  about  pretexts  desire  only 
instruments,  for  interfering  in  the  politics  of  conterminal 
states  with  a  view  to  ultimate  conquest  and  appropriation. 
There  might  seem  to  be  somewhat  of  barbaric  hebetude  in 
the  readiness  with  which  the  subtle  refugee  was  entertained, 
notwithstanding  experiences  of  double  dealing,  in  the  cases  of 
Histiaeus,  or  Aristagoras;  but  to  a  certain  extent  such 
traitors  were  indispensable  to  Persia  for  administration  of 
Greek  cities  and  districts,  if  they  were  to  continue  to  yield 
the  tribute  that  was  the  chief  reason  for  holding  them  :  and 
there  were  always  abundant  instances  of  able  men  who  were 
rendering  most  valuable  services  to  Persia,  and  proved  to  be 
quite  content  to  advantage  themselves  at  no  greater  sacrifice 
than  desertion  or  even  betrayal  of  national  and  party  connec- 
tions. His  reputation  for  wisdom — how  could  it  be  other- 
wise?— was  at  Susa  before  him,  and  his  arrival  could  not  have 
been  more  opportune.  The  young  king,  who  had  himself  just 
emerged  from  a  sea  of  perils,  was  struck  with  surprise  and 
admiration  at  his  daring  and  dexterity.  He  seemed  to  hold  in 
his  hand  a  solution  of  those  difficulties  of  dealing  with  the 
Greek  frontier  which  had  been  fatal  to  his  father,  and  even  it 


360  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

may  be  of  others  that  were  still  surrounding  him  at  home. 
It  is  perfectly  credible  that,  as  is  told,  his  elation  found 
vent  in  unusual  festivity,  and  even  his  sleep  was  interrupted 
as  he  broke  out  at  midnight  into  exclamations,  '  I  have  got 
Themistocles  the  *  Athenian.' 

Notwithstanding  his  years,  Themistocles  mastered  the 
new  language  with  incredible  facility,  and  as  readily  ac- 
quiring and  accommodating  himself  to  the  customs  of  the 
nation,  came  more  than  safely  through  all  the  jealousies  or 
animosities  of  the  palace  and  court.  The  sister  of  Xerxes, 
and  aunt  therefore  of  the  king,  was  fain  to  renounce  or 
suppress  her  feelings  against  the  enemy  of  her  sons  who 
had  perished  at  Salamis :  he  was  received  to  greater  favour 
than  ever  was  Greek  refugee  before  him;  admitted  to  the 
royal  huntings,  to  the  private  amusements,  and  even  the  do- 
mestic relaxations  of  the  king,  and  was  taken  into  confidence 
in  his  most  important  councils.  At  this  time,  says  Plutarch, — 
and  it  may  well  be  believed  after  the  revolutions  and  violence 
that  had  just  passed  over, — there  were  many  innovations  and 
changes  in  progress  with  respect  to  the  court  and  the  royal 
friends,  and  considerable  jealousy  was  felt  towards  Themis- 
tocles on  the  part  of  men  of  dignity,  as  presuming  to  make 
free  observations  respecting  them  to  the  king.  It  was  on 
such  an  occasion  that  the  Athenian,  who  is  characterised  for 
us  by  Thucydides,  was  in  his  proper  element ;  and  the 
characteristics  indeed  that  are  specified  by  the  historian  are 
given  as  explanatory  of  the  influence  that  he  acquired  with 
Artaxerxes.  '  For  Themistocles,'  he  says,  '  displayed  most 
absolutely  what  is  the  force  of  natural  endowment,  and  was 
in  this  respect  conspicuously  more  than  another  worthy  of 
admiration.  For  by  native  intelligence,  and  independently  of 
either  previous  or  occasional  information  to  assist  it,  he  formed 
on  briefest  deliberation  the  soundest  judgment  respecting 

1  Plut.  Them.  28. 


xxviii.]          THEMISTOCLES  AT  MAGNESIA.  361 

affairs  as  they  occurred  at  the  instant,  and  no  less  with 
respect  to  the  future  was  most  excellent  in  forecasting  what 
was  likeliest  to  ensue.  He  was  capable  of  giving  account  of 
any  business  he  had  in  hand,  and  did  not  fail  of  an  apt 
judgment  as  to  what  he  was  without  experience  in ;  and  as 
to  a  matter  that  was  still  in  a  state  of  obscurity,  he,  at  least, 
foresaw  what  would  be  for  the  better  and  what  for  the  worse. 
To  sum  the  whole,  by  the  force  of  his  genius  and  by  rapidity  of 
study  he  was  the  ablest  of  men  to  decide  on  a  sudden  what 
was  necessary  to  be  Jdone.' 

How  complete  were  the  confidence  and  admiration  he 
commanded  was  proved  by  his  dismissal  ultimately  to  com- 
parative independence,  as  governor  of  Magnesia  on  the 
Maeander,  and  of  its  district,  which  extended,  as  it  surprises 
us  to  find, — but  perhaps  only  because  the  Persian  chose 
to  assume  so, — even  to  Myus,  intermediate  on  the  seaboard 
between  revolted  Miletus  and  adjacent  Mycale.  In  barbaric 
formula,  Magnesia,  with  its  revenue  of  fifty  talents  in  the 
year,  was  assigned  to  supply  him  with  bread,  and  Myus,  on 
a  gulf  abounding  in  fish,  with  condiment, — that  is,  with  salt 
relish, — Lampsacus  on  the  Hellespont  with  wine,  for  which 
Thucydides  implies  that  it  was  more  preeminently  celebrated 
in  that  day  than  his  own,  scarcely  a  generation  later, — 
Perkote  in  the  same  neighbourhood  with  bedding,  and 
Palaeskepsis  in  Aeolis  with  wardrobe. 

There  would  seem  to  have  been  some  particular  purpose 
in  furnishing  him  with  occasions  for  authoritative  visits  at 
widely  separated  points  on  the  frontier.  Mention  occurs  of 
some  ill-feeling  on  the  part  of  a  Persian,  Epixyes,  Satrap  of 
Upper  Phrygia,  abutting  on  these  northern  grants,  of  such 
rancour  and  so  dangerous  that  Themistocles  ascribed  his  escape 
to  divine  favour,  and  founded  in  acknowledgment  at  Magnesia 
a  fane  of  Dindymenc,  mother  of  the  Gods,  of  which  he  made 

1  Thucyd.  i.  139. 


362  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

his  daughter  Mnesiptolema  priestess.  On  another  occasion 
he  was  in  peril  at  Sardis ;  in  the  temple  of  the  Great  Mother 
there  he  came  upon  a  bronze  figure  of  a  maiden  with  a  pitcher 
— a  Kore  hydrophorus — two  cubits  high,  spoil  taken  from 
Athens,  where  he  himself  had  dedicated  it  when  he  presided 
over  the  water  supply,  from  the  fines  of  fraudulent  abstractors. 
His  suggestion,  prompted  by  whatever  motive, — an  inter- 
esting one  however  interpreted, — that  he  should  be  allowed 
to  restore  it,  aroused  indignation  which  he  only  pacified  by 
conciliating  with  the  aid  of  bribes  the  indirect  interposition 
of  the  occupants,  probably  Ionian,  of  a  Persian  harem.  At 
Magnesia  he  remained  in  wealth  and  dignity,  amidst  a 
numerous  family.  Much  of  his  property  in  Greece  had  been 
saved  by  timely  transfer  to  Argos,  and  some  was  even  trans- 
mitted to  him  from  Athens  by  his  friends,  in  evasion  of  the 
general  confiscation  of  all  that  could  be  attached  there — still 
an  enormous  sum.  Such  friendship  was  perilous,  and  it  is 
disagreeable  to  find  on  record  that  Epicrates  the  Acharnian 
was  even  put  to  death,  and  that  too  at  the  instance  of  Cimon,  for 
having  aided  the  escape  of  his  wife  and  children.  It  would 
be  a  poor  extenuation  that  they  were  regarded  and  retained 
as  hostages  for  the  dangerous  exile.  Political  rancour  of  this 
stamp  was  of  bad  example,  and  bore  fatal  fruits  at  a  later 
time,  when  the  resentment  of  such  an  exile  as  Alcibiades  was 
envenomed  by  the  execution  of  his  adherents  and  friends. 

So  long  as  Themistocles  was  known  to  survive,  his  life  and 
possible  action  could  scarcely  be  left  out  of  political  considera- 
tion at  Athens;  it  is  observable,  however,  that  whatever 
promises  he  may  once  have  held  out  at  Susa,  there  is  no  hint 
or  slightest  indication,  between  his  arrival  there  and  his 
death,  of  any  renewal  of  Persian  aggressiveness,  or  preparation 
for  it,  against  Greece.  The  persistence  of  his  favour  notwith- 
standing, would  almost  of  necessity  imply  that  his  counsels  had 
been  given  and  had  weight  in  favour  of  a  purely  defensive 
policy  on  this  frontier,  where  attempts  to  recover  full  command 


xxvm.]  PERSIAN  FRONTIER  POLICY.  363 

of  the  coasts  and  islands  were  manifestly  futile,  unless  all  the 
consequences  were  to  be  accepted  of  reviving-  the  disastrous 
projects  of  Xerxes,  not  to  say  of  Darius,  against  Europe.  Apart 
from  such  designs,  which  in  any  case  demanded  reconstruction 
of  a  powerful  fleet,  there  was  no  better  frontier  for  Persia 
after  all  than  an  interior  line  of*  Hellenic  and  semi-Hellenic 
towns  contented,  as  we  have  found  was  the  case  with  Phaselis, 
to  be  at  peace  and  to  pay  tribute,  whether  through  Persian 
or  Hellenic  satraps.  It  was  by  such  representations  that 
Alcibiades  at  a  later  date  reconciled  Tissaphernes  to  favouring 
the  Athenians  against  the  Lacedaemonians — on  the  ground 
that  if  they  were  allowed  to  have  their  way  with  the  cities 
on  the  coast  they  would  even  help  the  Great  King  to  his 
with  the  inland  Greeks,  and  might  be  trusted  to  have  no 
designs  to  penetrate  ]  further. 

His  countrymen  may  be  considered  to  have  made  some 
reparation  to  Themistocles,  when,  despite  his  equivocal 
position,  they  never  brought  themselves  to  credit  him, 
whether  ostracised  at  Argos  or  exiled  and  proscribed  in 
Asia,  with  any  really  treasonable  activity  against  either 
Athens  or  Hellas.  His  death,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five,  is 
assigned  to  about  460  B.  c.,  at  a  time  when  Athens  was  again 
resuming  active  hostilities  at  Cyprus  and  in  Egypt,  and  it  was 
thought  to  have  occurred  too  opportunely  for  his  honour  not 
to  have  been  voluntary.  Thucydides  concludes  for  his  death 
in  course  of  nature,  but  still  records  the  report  that  he 
destroyed  himself  in  despair  of  being  able  to  perform  what 
he  had  promised  to  the  Great  King  against  the  Greeks. 
Another  report  that  he  places  on  record  at  the  same  time, 
that  it  was  by  Themistocles'  own  command  that  his  relatives 
secretly  transported  his  bones  to  the  soil  of  Attica,  harmonises 
better  with  those  versions  of  his  death  that  ascribe  it,  not  to 
inability,  but  to  unwillingness  to  injure  his  2  country.  The 

1  Thuc.  viii.  46.  a  Diod.  xi.  57. 


364  UISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

story  that  the  mode  of  his  death  was  by  a  draught  of  bull's 
blood  at  a  solemn  sacrifice  seems  derived  in  some  recondite 
manner  from  a  traditional  rite  of  his  tribe  of  Lycomidae. 
Such  a  draught  was  the  test  of  the  priestess  of  Ge  (  =  Gaia- 
Themis  of  the  Prometheus  Vinctus)  at  Gaius  in  'Arcadia, 
where  it  seems  implied  that  death  ensued  on  a  false  oath. 
Compare,  however,  another  Persian  instance,  but 2  compulsory. 
With  Aristophanes,  who  alludes  to  this  form  of  his  catastrophe, 
'  to  die  like  Themist odes'  is  to  imitate  the  noblest  of 3 models. 
That  even  at  Magnesia  he  had  not  been  inactive  in  his 
boasted  faculty  of  making  cities  prosperous,  is  intimated  by 
the  magnificent  monument  raised  for  him  by  the  citizens  in 
the  midst  of  the  agora,  as  if  to  a  second  founder,  and  by 
the  honours  which  were  continued  there  to  his  descendants 
through  long  generations. 

1  Paus.  vii.  25.  8.  2  Herod,  iii.  15,  and  Creuzer's  note. 

3  Arist.  Equit.  84. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE   SEVENTY-NINTH   OLYMPIAD. CORINTHIAN   AND   RHODIAN 

VICTORS. 

THE  year  after  the  death  of  Xerxes — the  second  of  the 
Thasian  War — brought  round  at  midsummer  (464  B.  c.)  the 
seventy-ninth  Olympic  festival,  and  of  some  of  its  incidents 
we  have  authentic  illustrations  that  most  happily  supply  certain 
social  characteristics  which  are  all-important  for  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  period.  For  two  of  the  victors  on  this  occasion, 
Diogoras  of  Rhodes  and  Xenophon  of  Corinth,  Pindar  com- 
posed epinician  odes  that  have  come  down  to  us  entire,  and 
for  the  latter  a  scolion  of  which  the  fragments — all  that  are 
left — are  even  more  important  and  interesting. 

Xenophon,  of  the  noble  family  of  Oligaethadae,  gained — a 
success  unprecedented — the  double  victory  of  the  stadium  and 
the  pentathlon  ;  his  father  forty  years  before  had  been  victor 
in  the  foot  race,  and  Pindar  opens  his  ode  with  the  proud 
epithet  for  the  family  '  Thrice-Olympian-victoried.'  This 
instance  furnishes  a  conspicuous  example — but  only  one  among 
abundance  of  others  in  all  parts  of  Hellas  proper  and  even 
in  Sicily — of  hereditary  distinction  in  the  games,  in  the  case 
of  families  of  high  social  and  even  political  importance.  But 
it  is  still  more  interesting  as  preserving  intimations  of  the 
interior  characteristics  of  Corinth  at  this  time,  of  which  we 
know  too  little ;  as  indeed  how  little  do  we  know  of  the 
endlessly  varied  characteristics  of  the  inner  life  of  any  of  the 


366  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

numberless  Greek  cities  except  Athens.  Corinth  was  always 
the  most  influential  of  the  Peloponnesian  allies  of  Sparta,  by 
true  sympathy  of  Dorian  race,  though  most  contrasted  in 
manners  and  pursuits ;  she  was  very  soon  to  be  the  most 
active  of  the  agitators  against  the  power  of  Athens — to  a 
very  great  extent  in  consequence  of  points  of  agreement 
unfortunately  diverted  to  irritating  contact  and  collision. 
A  gleam  of  light  is  flashed  for  a  moment  by  Pindar  into 
the  deep  obscurity  of  a  busy,  energetic,  and  luxurious  social 
system,  and  we  are  bound  to  make  the  most  of  its  revelations 
iu  the  interests  of  history.  In  his  two  poems  for  the  same 
victories  at  different  celebrations,  two  sides  of  Corinthian  life 
are  presented  to  our  view — two  aspects  that  are  in  more  than 
Doric  and  Ionic  contrast. 

Corinth  was  still  at  this  time,  as  of  yore,  aristocratic,  and 
in  the  enjoyment  of  the  prolonged  tranquillity  which  Pindar 
was  ever  disposed  to  associate  with  the  predominance  of  '  the 
Best.'  Justice,  Order,  and  Peace  are  the  characteristics  that 
he  asserts  for  her  under  presidency  of  the  Seasons,  the  Horae, 
which  are  personified  by  him,  as  they  had  already  been  by 
Hesiod,  under  ethical  titles — Dike,  Eunomia,  Eirene — though 
still  without  forfeiting  their  epithet  of  the  '  many-flowered.' 
To  the  influence  of  these  goddesses  are  due  the  wealth  of  the 
city,  the  virtues  that  triumph  in  the  games,  and  the  ingenuity 
that  originates  novelty  alike  in  the  aesthetic  and  the  useful 
arts.  The  poet  cites  as  examples  of  Corinthian  inventiveness, 
such  as  her  citizens  assert  the  value  of  in  their  taunts  to 
the  stationary  1  Spartans,  the  dithyramb  which  Arion  had 
commenced  when  in  favour  at  the  Court  of  Periander ;  im- 
provements in  the  harness  of  horses,  and  the  decoration  of  the 
expanded  wing-like  pediment — the  ae'toma — of  the  temples 
of  the  Gods.  Thucydides  credits  them  with  the  invention  of 
the  s  trireme.  Intellectual,  poetical,  warlike,  gymnic  distinc- 

1  Thuc.  i.  70.  *  Ib.  i.  13. 


xxix.]           CHARACTERISTICS  OF  CORINTH.  367 

tions  are  all  ascribed  to  the  inspired  prompting  of  the 
goddesses  of  all  established  order  and  beauteous  develop- 
ment. The  Seasons  in  their  conjoint  natural  and  ethical 
aspects  are  interchanged  by  the  Greeks  not  unfrequently  with 
the  Moirai,  the  Fates,  or  are  associated  with  them  as  correla- 
tive expressions  of  the  ultimate  energies  of  all  change  and 
movement ;  and  it  is  therefore  highly  probable  that  they  are 
to  be  identified  with  the  Moirai  whom  Pausanias  finds  asso- 
ciated with  the  nature  goddesses  Demeter  and  Kore  in  their 
temple  on  Acrocorinthus,  where  the  priestesses  had  a  faculty 
of  divination  by  dreams. 

The  usual  mythical  example  of  the  qualities  that  are  cele- 
brated in  the  victor  is  in  this  case  Bellerophon,  son  of  the  god 
of  the  Isthmus.  It  was  he  who  invented  the  bridle,  or  rather 
the  bit — the  very  condition  of  any  effective  horsemanship ; 
which  in  his  hands  was  equal  to  controlling  even  the  winged 
Pegasus,  the  favourite  type  of  Corinthian  coins,  with  the 
head  of  Athene  on  the  obverse ;  this  knowledge  came  to  him 
in  a  dream  which  he  invited  by  couching  near  the  altar  of 
Athene — the  Athene  Chalinitis  doubtless  of  the  fane  known 
to  Pausanias  on  this  spot.  This  mode  of  consulting  the  gods 
was  chiefly  resorted  to  for  suggestion  of  cures  for  diseases, 
and  hence  the  poet  calls  the  bridle  '  a  mild  medicament,'  '  an 
equestrian  philtre.'  After  recounting  the  achievements  and 
then  the  fate  of  Bellerophon,  Pindar  recurs  to  the  catalogue 
of  victories  of  the  family  of  Xenophon,  and  ends  with  a  grace- 
fully covert  injunction — itself  a  flattery — to  moderation  and 
modesty. 

But  even  so  we  should  still  miss  the  point — as  it  has  been 
missed — of  the  parallel  of  Bellerophon,  but  for  regard  to  indi- 
cations that  survive  in  the  fragmentary  scolion.  From  these 
it  appears  that  Xenophon,  like  his  heroic  antitype,  ascribed 
his  victory  to  suggestions  of  a  goddess,  and  like  him  acknow- 
ledged the  favour  by  a  sacred  celebration;  while  that  the 
goddess  was  not  Athene,  but  Aphrodite,  explains  a  reticence 


368  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

that  befits  Epinician  dignity,  though  the  circumstances  could 
not  but  be  notorious  to  the  audience  of  the  ode  and  be  recog- 
nised as  pointing  the  aptness  of  its  allusions. 

Corinth  was  wealthy  above  all  through  the  advantage  of 
her  situation,  where  in  closest  connection  between  two  seas  she 
held  between  East  and  West  the  gates  of  commerce,  which 
willingly  avoided,  even  at  the  cost  of  some  land  carriage,  the 
long  and  dangerous  sea  route  round  Cape  l  Malea.  The  influx 
of  strangers,  of  mariners,  of  wealth  on  travel,  of '  wayfaring 
licentiousness,'  brought  into  importance  in  this  Dorian  city  an 
institution  which  is  not  paralleled  even  at  Athens — the  attach- 
ment of  vast  numbers  of  female  hierodules  to  the  temple  of 
Aphrodite  as  consecrated  ministers  and  contributaries  to  her 
revenues.  To  the  prayers  of  such  a  tribe  to  their  patroness 
did  the  Corinthian  State  resort,  and  not  shrink  from  ad- 
mitting obligation  for  the  repulse  of  the  Mede.  Their 
intercession  and  their  participation  at  a  solemn  sacrifice  were 
represented  in  a  dedicated  picture,  and  Simonides — the  most 
renowned  contemporary  poet  in  this  quality — furnished  the 
elegiac  inscription  that  has  come  down  to  us.  To  this 
goddess  had  Xenophon  addressed  himself,  and  now  with  his 
double  Olympic  crowns  evinced  his  gratitude  by  a  festive 
sacrifice,  and  therewith  the  dedicated  services  of  one  hundred 
of  these  ministrants.  Pindar,  who  is  only  taking  the  place 
of  Simonides,  writes  the  scolion  for  the  occasion  ;  not,  how- 
ever, be  it  said,  without  introducing  very  decided  expressions 
to  the  effect  that,  after  all  allowance  made  for  those  who  have 
to  accept  a  necessity  gracefully,  the  task  he  had  himself 
undertaken  was  embarrassing  and  incongruous  enough,  and 
craved  almost  equal  indulgence. 

These  were  the  contingencies  that,  according  to  Strabo, 
explained  the  Greek  metrical  proverb, — more  familiar  in 
Horace, — that  Corinth  was  not  a  city  to  be  visited  by  every 

1  Strabo. 


xxix.]  ARISTOCRATIC  ATHLETICISM.  369 

man.  With  what  persistency  such  characteristics  clung  to 
the  locality,  even  after  the  desolating  Roman  had  passed  over 
it,  is  well  known  from  the  injunctions  and  warnings  which 
were  most  urgently  demanded  by  Corinth  l  Christianised. 

The  victory  of  the  Rhodian  Diagoras  at  the  same  festival 
was  gained  in  the  pugilism  of  men;  he  was  son,  father,  and 
grandfather  of  Olympian  victors — his  son  Dorieus  was  even 
victor,  as  pancratiast,  in  three  successive  Olympiads.  Thucy- 
dides  introduces  a  reference  to  the  occasion  of  his  second 
victory  as  useful  for  defining  a  date. 

Diagoras  belonged  to  the  Heracleid  families  that  had  once 
ruled  at  Rhodes  with  kingly  power,  and  still  retained  certain 
political  predominance.  His  father  Damagetus  is  alluded  to 
as  in  a  leading  position,  and  Dorieus  is  found  in  a  military 
command  in  the  Peloponnesian  war  after  the  island  had 
joined  the  enemies  of  Athens.  When  fortune  of  war  threw 
him  into  the  power  of  the  exasperated  and  seldom  lenient 
Athenians,  he  owed  his  life — so  at  least  it  was  said — as  much 
to  the  admiration  of  his  magnificent  frame  in  presence  before 
them  as  to  the  glory  of  his  2  deeds. 

It  is  only  among  Dorians,  as  of  Corinth,  Rhodes,  or 
Aegina,  that  we  still  meet  with  men  of  birth,  position, 
and  power  taking  this  personal  concernment  in  contests  of 
physical  strength  and  skill,  which  seems  out  of  place  at  the 
stage  of  civilisation  now  attained  by  Hellas,  whatever  might 
be  the  case  in  the  simplicity  of  antiquity,  in  the  contests  at 
the  funeral  games  of  Patroclus,  or  at  the  court  of  Alcinous. 
In  one  respect  the  civilisation  of  Homer  seems  even  a  degree 
more  refined,  for  we  observe  that  he  is  careful  to  commit  to 
the  rough  hazards  of  the  pugilism  in  which  Diagoras  ex- 
celled, only  personages  so  utterly  unimportant  or  secondary 
as  Epeius  and  Euryalus.  The  prizes  of  this  contest  are  the 
most  insignificant  of  all — the  victor  has  only  a  mule ;  and 

1  i  Cor.  vi.  13,  jo.  a  Paus.  vi.  7.  5. 

Bb 


370  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

in  this  contest  alone  does  the  poet  allow  sympathies  to  be 
seriously  disappointed,  as  if  in  rebuke  for  their  engagement 
about  so  coarse  a  conflict — the  victory  being  given,  with  a 
certain  contemptuousness,  to  a  boaster  and  a  bully. 

Pausanias  found  the  statue  of  Diagoras  at  Olympia,  by  a 
leading  sculptor,  Callicles  of  Megara,  and  with  it  an  entire 
group  of  victors  all  of  his  family.  Pindar  composed  for  him 
the  beautiful  seventh  Olympic  Ode,  which  was  afterwards 
seen  set  up  in  letters  of  gold  in  the  temple  of  Athene  at 
Lindus  in  Rhodes. 

Although  at  present  not  only  popularly,  but  by  Herodotus 
as  well  as  by  Pindar,  the  cultured  perfection  of  the  bodily 
frame  could  be  taken  as  presumption  of  all  the  virtues  and 
all  refinement,  voices  had  already  been  raised  in  Greece — • 
that  of  Xenophanes  particularly  —  against  the  excessive 
glorification  of  athletic  prowess.  Training  became,  as  on  the 
modern  race-course,  too  much  valued  for  the  sake  of  the  par- 
ticular contest  to  have  regard  to  any  purpose  beyond,  and  the 
primary  justification  of  the  system  fell  out  of  view  and  was 
frustrate.  Euripides,  who  was  of  such  age  as  to  have  been 
born  at  Salamis  sixteen  years  before  our  date,  on  the  very  day 
of  the  battle  in  which  Aeschylus  was  a  warrior,  and  for  which 
Sophocles,  as  a  beautiful  youth,  sang  the  paean  to  the  lyre, 
was  soon  to  denounce  the  pride  of  the  athlete  in  terms  as  sour 
and  severe  as  those  which  were  echoed  afterwards  by  philoso- 
phers, statesmen,  and  J  physicians. 

1  Eurip.  frag.  Avtolyc. ;  Plato  de  Rep.  iii.  410  ;  Arist.  Pol.  viii.  3  ;  Galen  de 
val.  tuend. 


CHAPTEE    XXX. 

THE   RISE   OF   PERICLES. — REVOLT   OF   THE    HELOTS. — 
SURRENDER   OF   THASOS. — 

B.C.  464-3. 

THE  brilliant  victories  of  Cimon,  the  additional  subsidies 
that  he  brought  in  from  new  confederates,  to  contribute, 
together  with  the  spoils  of  enemies,  to  the  riches  and  em- 
bellishment of  the  city,  went  far  to  complete  an  influence 
already  fostered  by  his  popular  manners  and  lavish  employ- 
ment of  his  own  great  wealth.  So  it  was  thatjie  threatened 
to  '  l  out-demagogue '  his  political  rivals ;  and  among  those 
who  were  driven  in  consequence  on  new  demagogic  arts,  were 
some  who  would  perhaps  have  preferred  to  aid  the  conser- 
vation of  whatever  aristocratical  elements  the  constitution 
still  retained,  might  this  only  be  done  consistently  with  their 
own  emergence  to  power.  Such  was  especially  the  position 
of  Pericles,  of  distinguished  birth,  but  who  as  son  of  Xan- 
thippus,  the  prosecutor  of  Miltiades,  might  find  himself  of 
necessity  on  the  side  of  the  opponents  of  his  son.  He  was 
at  present  only  gradually  coming  to  the  front,  but  working 
meanwhile  influentially  in  the  councils  of  a  party  of  which 
he  was  content  for  a  time  to  leave  to  others  the  ostensible 
and  perhaps  invidious  guidance.  It  was  his  policy,  indeed, 

1  Plut.  Pericles,  9. 
B  b  2 


372  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

even  after  his  eminence  was  declared,  and  partly  it  was  be- 
lieved from  his  apprehension  of  the  catastrophe  of  ostracism 
which  ever  threatened  an  Athenian  statesman,  to  work  in  asso- 
ciation with  others  and  hold  himself  in  reserve  for  special 
occasions.  Political  management  had  now  become  more  than 
ever  a  task  of  delicacy  and  danger  also.  The  Athenian 
demus  had  assumed  a  self-consciousness  and  a  self-will  which 
made  it  a  necessity  for  one  who  hoped  to  rise  to  political 
power  to  reckon  with  it  as  a  personal  entity  of  special 
character,  having  its  own  passions,  and  aims  that  were  ever 
acquiring  more  positive  and  resolute  definition.  Still  more 
urgently  than  in  the  case  of  Solon  did  it  now  behove  the 
aspirant  to  legislative  influence  to  consider  what  proportion 
of  the  best  he  might  venture  to  go  for  as  possible ;  it  was 
well  if  he  combined  with  administrative  ability  such  true 
political  insight  as  to  extend  this  proportion  by  the  force 
of  his  own  character,  and  were  spared  the  weak  descent 
into  assentation,  the  lazy  adoption  of  only  so  much  of 
the  desirable  as  was  easiest,  or  unprincipled  furtherance  of 
whatever  would  carry  most  favour  at  the  hour. 

Cimon,  on  his  part,  seems  to  have  trusted  too  much  to  the 
power  of  popularity  when  opposed  to  a  popular  movement, 
and  to  have  been  little  disposed  to  pursue  the  example  which 
had  been  set  by  his  master  and  colleague,  Aristides,  of  con- 
ceding a  change  which  had  become  inevitable,  and  so  at  least 
gaining  an  opportunity  to  qualify  if  not  to  control  it.  En- 
couraged by  his  successes  and  personal  favour,  he  stood  firm 
on  his  political  lines,  and  prepared  to  defend  a  policy  which 
was  the  reverse  of  popular,  and  a  political  theory  that  the 
consequences  of  his  own  proceedings  were  naturally  tending 
to  discredit.  At  this  very  time  he  was  engaged  as  a  com- 
mander in  promoting  a  change  of  relations  between  Athens 
and  her  aUies  which  gradually  impaired  the  cordial  under- 
standing with  Sparta  which  he  had  most  at  heart,  and  at 
the  same  time  so  stimulated  the  pride  of  the  demus  as  to 


xxx.]  CIMON  AND  THE  DEMOCRACY. 

make  them  ever  more  and  more  restive  under  restrictions 
which  he  would  himself  have  preferred  rather  to  tighten  than 
relax. 

As  fear  of  the  barbarian  declined,  the  confederates  began  to 
find,  first  the  obligations  and  then  the  burdens  of  the  assess- 
ment of  Aristides,  the  price  of  their  rescue  and  continued 
safety,  intolerably  irksome ;  those  who  were  bound  to  per- 
sonal service  on  shipboard,  to  supply  crews  to  their  own  or 
Athenian  ships,  were  especially  recalcitrant,  and  became  ever 
more  unwilling  to  give  up  the  ease  of  life  on  land,  and  the 
tranquil  pursuit  of  wealth,  in  industries  never  so  profitable 
as  on  a  recovery  of  security  after  war.  To  Cimon  Plutarch 
assigns  the  origination  of  the  policy  of  accepting  composi- 
tion for  personal  service,  first  in  unmanned  ships  and  then  in 
money  payments  which  would  always  provide  crews,  and 
those  more  entirely  under  Athenian  control.  Crews  were, 
in  fact,  taken  in  rotation  from  among  the  Athenians  them- 
selves, who  thus  with  liberal  pay  acquired  maritime  habits 
and  warlike  discipline,  in  every  way  at  the  expense  of  allies 
who  sunk  unawares  into  the  position  and  experienced  the 
treatment  of  subjects  and  servants.  Disputes  as  to  the 
money  payments  before  long  involved  state  prosecutions,  and 
compulsion  which  was  sometimes  so  severely  administered  as 
to  aggravate  the  already  serious  discontents.  In  the  mean- 
time every  Athenian  oarsman,  every  artisan  in  the  dock- 
yards of  the  Peiraeus  was  acquiring  the  self-consciousness 
of  a  unit  in  an  imperial  state;  and  every  trireme  that  left 
the  national  port  carried  men  who  had  risen  with  the  ex- 
tension of  the  l  marine,  and  indulged,  as  the  new  men  of 
new  empires  will  and  sometimes  brutally,  in  the  demeanour 
of  superiority. 

The  reaction  on  home  politics  at  Athens  of  this  constantly 
advancing  spirit  of  pride  and  independence,  soon  led  to 

1  Xen.  Rep.  Athen, 


374  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

agitation  not  merely  to  shake  off  restraints,  but  to  share  in 
the  immediate  control  of  affairs  a,nd  in  its  appropriate  rewards. 
The  efficiency  of  administration  might  be  liable  to  become 
impaired  by  the  changes  so  induced,  but  in  this  case,  from 
the  temper  of  the  times,  even  any  corrective  policy  could 
scarcely  but  involve  a  further  concession  to  democracy.  It 
seems  to  have  been  a  conflict  on  some  of  the  questions  which 
were  soon  to  induce  capital  constitutional  changes,  that  first 
seriously  affected  the  position  which  Cimon  had  gained  by 
his  liberalities  as  well  as  his  services,  and  so  rendered  a 
single  reverse  in  his  conduct  of  external  politics  for  him 
an  irretrievable  disaster. 

Tribute  and  the  commutations  for  service  were  already 
accumulating  at  Athens  the  surplus  treasure  which  was  after- 
wards to  supply  a  fund  for  her  magnificent  public  monu- 
ments, and  Pericles,  now  acting  in  conjunction  with  Ephialtes, 
was  the  first  to  declare  that  it  might  be  fairly  drawn  upon 
to  contribute  to  the  enjoyments  of  her  so  well-deserving 
citizens.  It  was  apparently  by  the  institution  of  the  theoricon, 
— of  the  payment  to  poorer  citizens  to  enable  them  to  partici- 
pate in  the  national  festivities  of  the  Panathenaea  and  the 
Dionysia, — that  a  system  was  commenced  which  had  the 
most  important  and  gravest  results,  and  in  the  meantime 
at  least  countervailed  the  private  donations  of  Cimon,  and 
probably  committed  him  to  unpopular  opposition.  Since 
the  erection  of  a  costly  stone  theatre  in  place  of  earlier  and 
more  simple  accommodation,  a  charge  of  two  obols  had  been 
made  for  seats,  which,  small  as  it  may  seem,  was  sufficient  to 
shut  out  many  on  occasions  when  as  members  of  the  ruling 
body  they  seemed  to  have  every  right  to  be  present.  The 
periodical  theatrical  entertainments  were  a  chief  part  of  a 
public  celebration  at  a  sacred  Dionysiac  festival :  whether  in 
their  comic  or  tragic  manifestations,  they  were  addressed 
most  immediately  to  the  same  public  sympathies  and  interests 
that  agitated  the  political  assembly,  and  the  democratic  spirit 


xxx.]         INSTITUTION  OF  THE  THEORICON.  375 

required  that  the  audience  should  be  the  same.  A  payment 
by  the  state  of  the  admission  money  of  the  poor  was  in 
reality  but  a  circuitous  form  of  public  subvention  to  the 
expenses  of  the  theatre, — the  condition  which  in  modern  times 
has  too  certainly  proved  indispensable  for  the  prolonged 
maintenance  of  either  the  poetical  or  the  musical  drama  at  the 
highest  standard.  The  poor  citizens  by  this  assistance  were 
in  effect  admitted  free  to  the  theatre,  on  the  same  principle 
that  they  might  participate  in  the  sight  of  a  costly  national 
procession  through  the  open  streets,  or  in  the  enjoyment  of 
public  parks,  or  gardens,  or  porticoes,  of  which  the  expense 
had  been  defrayed  out  of  either  foreign  tribute  or  the  home 
taxation  which  only  touched  classes  above  them.  That  the 
multitude  should  be  allowed  such  an  enjoyment  at  a  reduced 
cost,  or  even  gratis,  is  in  itself  no  more  of  an  anomaly  than 
that  they  should  walk  cost  free  past  a  noble  building  or 
through  a  gallery  of  pictures. 

We  are  destitute  of  precise  information  as  to  the  dates 
of  successive  extensions  of  this  principle ;  but  Plutarch, 
right  or  wrong,  distinctly  states  that  it  furnished  one  of  the 
instruments  by  which  Pericles  and  Ephialtes  were  enabled  to 
make  head  against  Cimon,  and  the  theoricon  appears  to  be 
the  example  of  its  application  which  has  least  connection 
with  movements  that  occurred  after  the  party  victory  was 
decided.  This  victory  was  not  long  to  be  delayed,  and  was 
due  at  last  to  the  collapse  of  Cimon's  policy  of  a  close  alliance 
with  Sparta  ;  events  were  already  in  progress  to  vindicate  the 
sagacity  of  those  who  mistrusted  it  all  along  as  a  delusion 
and  a  snare.  The  Thasians  were  not  reduced  till  463  B.C.  ; 
in  the  previous  year,  the  fourth  of  King  Archidamus, 
they  were  still  sanguine  of  relief,  on  the  ground,  according 
to  Thucydides,  that  the  Spartans  had  distinctly  promised 
to  render  it  by  the  invasion  of  Attica,  which  it  was  believed 
would  infallibly  cause  the  siege  to  be  raised.  The  tradition 
was  still  in  force  and  was  to  continue  for  some  time  longer, 


376  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

that  the  delivery  of  one  strong  blow  by  Sparta  in  a  short 
expedition  in  the  interval  of  her  festivals  would  suffice  to 
redress  a  grievance  and  assert  the  respect  due  to  her  authority ; 
even  considerably  later  a  mere  threat,  or  certainly  a  demon- 
stration of  an  intention  to  invade,  was  expected  to  constrain 
a  reversal  of  Athenian  policy.  The  relations  of  Sparta  and 
Athens  for  still  a  year  or  two  onward  agree  with  the 
statement  of  the  historian,  that  if  not  the  negotiations, 
the  results  of  them  certainly,  were  very  successfully  kept 
secret. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  precise  form  of  their  promise 
or  the  value  of  their  intention  now,  the  collision  that  was  to 
come  more  furiously,  and  fatally,  hereafter,  was  deferred  by  a 
catastrophe  which  gave  the  Spartans  full  occupation  at  home, 
and  which,  by  involving  them  as  one  of  its  consequences  in  a 
ten  years'  war,  within  their  own  borders  and  for  very  exist- 
ence, was  to  accustom  them  perforce  to  sustained  efforts. 
Their  country  was  wrecked  by  an  earthquake  more  terrible 
than  had  ever  been  known,  and  the  city  of  Sparta  itself  was 
the  centre  of  the  convulsion :  chasms  opened  in  the  valley, 
vast  masses  were  detached  from  the  impending  summits  of 
Taygetus  ;  of  the  city  shaken  down  or  overwhelmed  by  land- 
slips, five  houses  at  most  were  left  standing, — such  is  the 
record;  large  numbers  perished,  and  by  one  peculiarly  de- 
structive and  lamentable  accident  a  great  assemblage  of 
youths  were  crushed  to  death  by  the  fall  of  the  building  in 
which  they  were  exercising.  Even  in  the  midst  of  this  dis- 
tress and  disorder,  the  apprehensions  of  the  ruling  class  were 
turned  to  a  peril  which  was  always  with  them,  and  never  more 
threateningly  than  of  late  since  the  treason  of  Pausanias — 
the  helots.  And  with  good  reason :  when  Archidamus  has- 
tened to  give  the  signal  by  trumpet  that  withdrew  the 
citizens  at  once  from  all  occupation  in  salvage  of  lives  or 
goods,  and  they  mustered  instantly  under  arms,  it  was  not  a 
moment  too  soon;  the  helots  were  already  collecting  in  the 


xxx.]  REVOLT  OF  THE  HELOTS.  377 

surrounding  country,  and  preparing  to  surprise  their  tyrannous 
masters  in  the  midst  of  their  trouble  and  confusion.  By  the 
promptitude  of  the  king  they  were  foiled  and  had  to  retire, 
but  it  was  only  to  commence  a  struggle  that  was  to  last  for 
ten  years. 

The  helot  class  were  for  the  most  part  descendants  of 
the  Messenians,  whom  the  Dorian  conquest  had  reduced  to 
1  slavery ;  chiefly,  it  is  possible,  of  the  lower  and  inferior 
classes  of  the  Messenians,  who  may  not  have  enjoyed  full 
privileges  even  before  the  conquest,  while  ages  of  studied 
repression  since  had  imbruted  them  still  further  :  but  strength 
was  infused  into  their  cause  by  the  sympathy  and  accession 
of  Messenians  and  the  perioeci  of  Thouriae  and  Anthea  espe- 
cially. This  class  enjoyed  a  restricted  franchise  in  their  seve- 
ral townships,  but  was  subordinated  in  every  respect  to  the 
Spartiats,  and  had  oppressions  of  its  own  to  complain  of;  what 
was  most  important  now,  they  had  experience  and  discipline 
from  having  served  in  the  Persian  war  not  only  as  light- 
armed  but  as  hoplites.  First  or  last  the  war,  stamped  with 
the  character  of  a  helot  insurrection  as  it  might  be  in  origin, 
became  a  revival  of  the  lost  cause  of  Aristodemus,  a  struggle 
for  the  recovery  of  Messenian  nationality  :  the  old  Messenian 
acropolis — the  precipitous  hill  of  Ithome — crowned  by  the 
temple  of  Zeus  Ithomatas,  was  seized  and  obstinately  main- 
tained ;  and  later  history,  following  Thucydides,  relates  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  third  Messenian  war.  The  courage  of  the 
insurgents  was  roused  and  sustained  by  a  confidence  in  divine 
support,  which  even  the  Spartans  could  not  pretend  to  disallow 
as  unnatural  and  unauthorised.  An  earthquake  was  the 
appropriate  sign  of  the  power  and  anger  of  Poseidon,  the 
earth-shaking  god  of  Homer,  and  of  this  god  the  most 
venerated  sanctuary,  at  Taenaron,  had  been  grossly  violated 
by  them  in  the  persons  of  vainly  suppliant  helots.  His 
severe  visitation  of  the  indignity  was  recognised  through- 

1  Time.  i.  101. 


378  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

out  Hellas,  and  while  it  roused  the  insurgents  to  enthu- 
siasm, was  not  without  effect  in  unnerving  even  Spartan 
confidence. 

To  provoke  the  hostility  of  Athens  at  such  a  time  was 
out  of  the  question ;  it  was  much  if  the  secret  treaty  could 
be  kept  a  secret,  and  the  Thasians  in  consequence  were  left 
to  their  fate.  In  463  B.C.  they  surrendered  on  hard  con- 
ditions; their  navy  was  given  up,  their  walls  demolished, 
a  large  immediate  payment  was  exacted,  decided  probably 
by  an  estimate  of  inability  to  pay,  without  the  irony,  not 
exclusively  modern,  of  reference  to  formally  calculated  ex- 
penses of  the  war;  and  a  future  annual  subsidy — now  rather 
a  tribute — was  assessed  :  lastly,  the  islanders  had  to  cede  the 
mines  which  were  the  immediate  origin  of  the  dispute,  and 
their  possessions  on  the  mainland.  Of  these  1Thucydides 
mentions  Galepsus  and  Oesyme  as  Thasian,  and  2  Herodotus 
Stryme  further  eastward  on  the  coast ;  and  Scapte  Hyle, — 
renowned  for  all  time  as  the  retirement  of  Thucydides  in 
exile, — is  noted  as  especially  valuable  for  productive  gold 
mines.  Festus  mentions  its  silver  mines  also,  and  observes  the 
derivation  of  the  local  name  from  mining.  The  exact  situation 
of  Scapte  Hyle,  or  Scaptensula  of  Roman  writers,  is  uncertain ; 
but  the  influence  which  Thucydides  speaks  of  as  possessed  by 
himself  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Amphipolis,  implies  that  his 
gold  works  were  not  remote  from  the  Strymon.  Another 
important  station  on  this  coast  was  Daton,  more  directly 
over  against  Thasos,  and  which,  according  to  Leake,  com- 
mands an  eastern  pass  only  second  in  importance  to  that 
westward  at  Nine  Ways  (Amphipolis).  A  fragment  of 
3  Strabo  ascribes  to  it  advantages  of  which  some  are  perhaps 
transferred  in  error  from  Nine  Ways,  and  Eion, — its  lake, 
and  rivers,  and  docks, — made  peculiarly  valuable  by  the  ship 
timber  available  at  hand,  in  addition  to  fertile  plains  and 

1  Thuc.  iv.  107.  '  Herod,  vii.  108.  *  Strabo,  331.  36. 


xxx.]  SURRENDER  OF  THASOS.  379 

lucrative  gold  mines.  The  expedition  to  the  Strymon,  which 
had  come  to  ruin"  so  disastrous  at  Brabescus,  is  connected  by 
Herodotus  with  Baton,  and  probably  made  this  its  immediate 
base  of  operations  in  advancing1  inland ;  for  it  is  precisely 
between  Baton  and  Brabescus  that  were  situated  the  mines 
which  Philip  of  Macedon  found  afterwards  so  profitable,  and 
which  gave  occasion  to  his  founding  his  city,  so  celebrated  in 
story  sacred  and  profane,  of  Philippi. 

It  seems  therefore  ascertained  that  the  Athenian  scheme 
extended  to  taking  possession  of  these  mines  also,  and  gaining 
command  of  the  entire  district  between  the  Strymon  and 
Baton,  including  the  beautiful  and  fertile  valley  of  Phyllis. 
The  defeat  at  Brabescus  had  not  only  checked  encroachments 
in  this  direction,  but  crippled,  if  it  did  not  for  the  time  defeat, 
the  intended  settlement  at  Ennea  Hodoi ;  and  the  Athenians, 
disappointed  by  the  failure  of  Leogrus  at  Baton,  were  in  a 
temper  to  be  discontented  with  Cimon  that  he  had  not  made 
upTor  it  by  acquisitions  hi  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Strymon, 
at  the  expense  not  merely  of  Thracians  but  of  Macedonia. 
Whatever  gains  he  might  have  brought  home  from  the 
subjection  of  Thasos,  the  popular  greed  for  mines  was  com- 
paratively disappointed  ;  it  was  objected  to  him  that  he  had 
neglected  an  opportunity  of  wresting  from  Alexander  of 
Macedon  some  metalliferous  districts  —  the  same  doubtless 
that  Herodotus  speaks  of  as  adjacent  to  Lake  Pratinas  above 
Nine  Ways.  A  pretext  would  not  be  wanting  if  it  need  be 
waited  for,  were  it  only  in  imputed  consequential  damage  by 
permitted  if  not  open  aid  to  rebels  :  that  he  had  foregone 
such  an  opportunity  was  ascribed  to  his  reception  of  bribes 
from  the  Macedonian  king,  and  upon  this  very  serious,  and 
indeed  l  capital  charge,  he  was  put  upon  his  defence.  At 
Athens  then,  no  less  than  at  Lacedaemon,  a  grudge  against 
even  a  successful  commander  found  a  convenient  opening  in 

Plut.  Pericles,  10. 


380  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

the  accusation  that  he  had  held  his  hand  too  soon,  and  in 
ascribing  the  lapse,  whether  truly  such  or  not,  to  the  influence 
of  corruption  rather  than  of  prudent  moderation,  or  at  most 
to  the  astuter  diplomacy  of  his  opponents.  The  recoil  of  this 
injustice  was  apt  to  be  serious :  no  inconsiderable  proportion 
of  the  Athenian  demus  was  in  after  years  to  be  detained  by 
Nicias  before  Syracuse,  against  his  own  better  judgment,  and 
to  a  miserable  catastrophe,  from  his  conviction  that  most  of 
those  who  were  then  loudest  for  the  necessity  of  retirement 
would,  at  home,  be  clamorous  in  ascribing  it  to  his  acceptance 
of  bribes  from  the  enemy. 

Pericles  was  at  least  popularly  regarded  as  attached  to  the 
party  of  the  accusers  of  Cimon,  if,  as  Plutarch  records,  he  was 
one  of  the  publicly  appointed  prosecutors ;  but  we  may  safely 
set  down  as  a  mere  inference  of  the  biographer — convicted 
moreover  on  his  own  showing — that  he  was  the  most  vio- 
lent ;  for  Plutarch  himself  has  a  tale  of  the  not  ineffectual 
intercession  of  Elpinice,  sister  of  Cimon,  who  made  a  personal 
appeal  to  him.  She  is  one  of  the  few  Athenian  ladies  whose 
names  come  up  in  anecdotes  of  any  kind,  much  less  of  public 
affairs.  Her  distinguished  beauty  and  perhaps  her  own  man- 
ners, along  with  the  notorious  youthful  laxity  of  Cimon,  were 
sufficient  to  set  afloat  the  scandal,  which  the  comedian  Eupolis 
found  amusing,  that  there  was  more  than  fraternal  love 
between  them :  she  was  however  only  his  half  sister,  and 
several  examples  in  Greek  history  of  the  time, — an  instance 
comes  before  us  in  the  royal  family  of  Sparta, — prove  that  such 
relationship  did  not  preclude  lawful  marriage,  which  is  one 
recorded  version  of  the  connection.  The  Thasian  painter 
Polygnotus,  whose  attachment  to  Cimon  left  many  traces  in 
his  art,  introduced  her  portrait  among  the  captive  Trojan 
women,  in  the  picture  with  which  he  gratuitously  decorated 
the  Poecile  stoa.  She  was  his  model  for  Laodice,  '  the  most 
beautiful,'  says  Homer,  cof  the  daughters  of  Priam,'  though 
<  rrtainly  he  pays  the  same  compliment  elsewhere  to  Cas- 


xxx.]  INDICTMENT  OF  CIMON.  381 

sandra ;  but  it  were  hard  indeed  if  such  a  compliment  from 
an  admiring  painter  is  to  be  urged  as  even  the  support,  much 
less  the  ground,  of  a  disparaging  imputation.  Pericles  set 
aside  the  appeal  with  a  verse  of  rather  obscure  pertinence, 
which  it  is  to  be  hoped  was  intended  and  understood  as  a 
compliment,  though  it  scarcely  sounds  so. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

EPHIALTES  AND  THE  DEMOCRACY. ATHENIANS  BEFORE  ITHOME.— 

CIMON    OSTRACISED. 

B.C.  461. 

THE  indictment  failed  and  Cimon  was  acquitted.  Pericles 
was  more  indulgent  than  Elpinice  had  perhaps  anticipated 
from  her  reception;  he  supported  the  accusers,  but  by  a 
single  and  that  a  markedly  perfunctory  speech.  What  we 
read  of  the  defence  of  Cimon  himself  seems  to  imply  that  he 
had  had  some  personal  intercourse  with  Alexander.  He 
appealed  to  the  dicasts  whether  it  was  his  known  way  to 
attach  to  himself  wealthy  foreign  hosts — lonians  or  Thessa- 
lians — as  was  the  manner  of  others  who  found  their  recom- 
pense in  services  and  gifts,  and  not  rather  to  the  simpler  and 
self-restrained  Lacedaemonians ;  the  riches  which  he  valued 
were  spoils  captured  from  an  enemy, — their  application,  to 
contribute  to  the  adornment  of  the  city.  The  latter  refer- 
ence was  a  proud  allusion  to  the  places  of  public  resort,  the 
gardens  and  porticoes  laid  out  with  elegance  and  always  open, 
to  which  at  his  own  instance  the  spoils  of  Mycale  had  been 
largely  devoted,  which  became  a  marked  characteristic  of  the 
city,  and  of  such  popularity  that  the  love  of  frequenting  them 
had  important  influence  on  the  habits  of  Athenian  life,  and  it 
may  even  be  said  on  the  development  of  Athenian  philosophy. 


THE  POLICY  OF  EPHIALTES.  383 

The  same  fund  had  supplied  the  cost  of  completing  the  south 
wall  of  the  acropolis. 

Satisfied  with  his  civic  victory  over  his  accusers,  Cimon 
was  before  long  again  absent  from  Athens  on  an  expedition 
of  which,  as  of  so  many  others  during  this  period,  no  parti- 
culars remain.  But  the  party  of  his  opponents  had  not  been 
idle  during  his  absence,  and  the  success  with  which  they 
could  avail  themselves  of  it  goes  far  to  prove  that  the  for- 
bearance of  Pericles  in  the  prosecution  might  be  due  to  con- 
sciousness of  strength  that  could  afford  to  be  magnanimous. 
The  most  ardent  and  active  promoter  of  change  at  this 
time  was  Ephialtes.  Under  which  of  the  many  influences 
that  dissolve  the  alliances  of  politicians  he  had  renounced 
his  former  connection  with  Cimon  does  not  appear;  the 
breach  was  certainly  serious  and  final.  He  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  the  first  among  Athenian  politicians  who  per- 
ceived the  advantage  of  uninterrupted  presence  at  the  centre 
of  political  action.  We  l  read  how,  at  some  time  after  the 
battle  of  Mycale,  he  sailed  unmolested  beyond  the  Cheli- 
donian  islands  with  a  squadron  of  thirty  ships,  as  Pericles 
on  another  occasion  with  fifty,  but  this  is  the  only  notice  that 
occurs  of  his  holding  a  command.  He  evidently  united  with 
an  energetic  and  even  passionate  character  the  sagacity  to 
discern  at  what  point  an  old  established  system  might  be 
assailed  not  only  with  success,  but  with  the  best  promise  of 
a  series  of  successes  afterwards. 

There  is  very  strong  presumption  that  the  great  attack 
of  Ephialtes  upon  the  Areopagus  dates  several  years  later; 
but  intermediately,  though  at  uncertain  dates,  very  consider- 
able reductions,  probably  due  to  his  influence  and  exertions, 
had  been  made  in  the  authority  of  the  archons,  the  council, 
and  other  magistracies, — especially  through  the  substitution 
of  appointment  by  lot  instead  of  by  election. 

1  Plut.  dm.  13. 


384  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

Plutarch  asserts  that  the  great  stroke  against  the  Areo- 
pagus had  been  delivered  already,  as  if  by  one  comprehensive 
change;  though  this  will  scarcely  stand  against  counter 
evidence.  But  Cimon  in  any  case  may  have  recognised  with 
clearness  that  unless  recent  legislation  could  be  turned 
back  upon  its  course,  it  must  of  necessity  involve  innova- 
tions even  still  more  serious,  of  some  of  which  no  doubt 
there  was  already  notice ;  and  he  did  not  flinch  from  a 
resolute  attempt  to  stand  in  the  gap.  But  it  was  without 
avail.  The  spirit  of  the  time  was  too  strong  for  him,  and  such 
legislation  under  such  circumstances  ever  proves  irreversible. 

Foiled,  however,  in  his  endeavour  to  mould  constitutional 
policy,  he  had  a  brilliant,  though  as  it  proved  only  a 
fallacious,  gleam  of  success  in  foreign,  the  occasion  of  whk-h 
seemed  to  arrive  most  opportunely.  The  Messenian  war  had 
now  reached  its  third  year,  with  seven  still  to  come,  and  was 
taxing  all  the  resources  of  the  Spartans.  Even  though  we 
make  very  considerable  deduction  on  the  score  of  exaggera- 
tion from  the  terms  of  Lysistrata  in  l  Aristophanes,  they  will 
still  be  evidence  for  the  anxi.-ty  and  urgency  with  which 
Sparta  appealed  to  the  general  allies,  among  them  to  Athens, 
for  assistance:  'Know  ye  not  how  on  a  time  the  Laconbn 
Pericleidas  came  hither  as  a  suppliant  of  the  Athenians, 
and  sat  with  sallow  face  in  his  scarlet  cloak  at  the  altars, 
begging  an  army/  Of  particular  disasters  we  have  but 
one  note,  and  that  undated,  doubtless  out  of  many  and  more 
serious.  It  is  preserved  in  an  anticipation  of  history  by 
2  Herodotus,  in  order  to  put  on  record  the  fate  of  Aeimnestus, 
slayer  of  Mardonius  at  Plataea.  Leading  300  men  in  the 
course  of  this  war  in  the  plain  of  Stenyclerus,  he  was  set 
upon  by  the  concentrated  Messenian  forces  and  perished  with 
his  entire  following.  At  present  the  difficulty  of  the  Spartans 
was  of  a  kind  that  had  long  been  among  their  greatest.  The 

1  Aristoph.  Lytif.  1138.  '  Herod,  iz.  64. 


xxxi.]  SPARTANS  BEFORE  I  THOME  385 

insurgents  were  established  in  Ithome,  of  which  the  natural 
strength  was  aided  by  fortification,  and  defied  the  besiegers, 
who  repeated  their  past  experience  of  the  inefficiency  of  their 
military  system  to  cope  with  enemies-  defended  by  works. 
The  fact  that  time  was  not  patiently  relied  on  to  force  a 
surrender  by  the  failure  of  food,  is  pretty  certain  proof  that 
sufficient  progress  had  not  been  made  in  the  field  for  the  city 
to  be  fully  invested ;  but  even  on  account  of  the  difficulty 
and  tediousness  of  this  process,  it  may  have  been  thought 
more  prudent  and  promising  to  risk  a  blow  under  whatever 
disadvantages  at  the  very  head  of  the  rebellion  in  its  chief 
stronghold  at  once. 

Herodotus  incidentally  alludes  to  a  victory  gained  by 
the  Spartans,  under  the  auspices  of  the  seer  Tisamenus, 
over  the  Messenians  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ithome;  but 
he  only  dates  it  generally,  as  after  two  previous  victories, 
over  the  Tegeans  and  Argives  first,  and  then  over  the  united 
Arcadians,  and  before  the  open  quarrel  with  Athens  and 
the  battle  of  Tanagra.  It  is  always  possible  that  it  was 
only  by  these  loosely  dated  victories — if  they  are  to  be 
brought  down  so  low — that  Sparta  had  succeeded  in  check- 
ing the  active  sympathy  with  the  insurgents  of  the  three 
states  within  Peloponnesus  which  were  always  most  jealous 
of  her  power ;  and  that  the  severe  cost  of  these  victories,  if 
not  also  of  that  before  Ithome,  accounts  for  the  urgent  suppli- 
cation for  Athenian  aid. 

The  sympathies  of  the  advocates  and  adversaries  of  a  Laco- 
nizing  policy  at  Athens  were  now  declared  in  all  the  contrast 
of  an  open  debate,  in  which  the  opposed  protagonists  again 
were  Cimon  and  Ephialtes.  The  larger  confederation  of 
entire  Hellas,  of  Dorians  and  lonians  conjointly,  which  had 
triumphed  at  Salamis  and  Plataea,  was  still  formally  subsist- 
ing, notwithstanding  the  division  of  states  as  grouped  under 
the  several  headships  of  Athens  and  Sparta,  but  with  the 
cessation  of  conjoint  action  against  the  barbarian  had  been 

c  c 


386  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

gradually  sinking  into  ineffectiveness.  Athens  had  had  no 
motive  for  repudiating  it,  so  long  as  she  was  unmolested  in 
the  course  which  it  suited  her  to  regard  as  consistent  with 
it;  and  at  most  had  only  recognised  her  obligations  under 
it,  when  in  the  revulsions  of  party  she  was  found  too 
willing  to  co-operate  with  Sparta  in  hunting  down  Themis- 
tocles.  But  a  conflict  of  interests  between  the  two  great 
divisions  of  the  alliance  had  been  gradually  ripening,  and 
the  time  was  come  when  one  or  the  other  might  hesitate 
to  sacrifice  a  separate  advantage  for  the  sake  of  securing 
what  was  only  to  be  enjoyed  in  common.  Athenians 
were  not  only  conscious  of  views  as  to  excluding  Sparta  more 
and  more  from  leadership,  and  as  to  becoming  most  decidedly 
independent  of  her  remonstrances  or  interference,  but  were 
well  aware  how  much  their  intentions  affected  the  pride  and 
sympathies  of  Spartans.  Unknown  as  the  Thasian  intrigue 
might  be — and  that  it  should  not  have  got  wind  within  two 
years  after  the  surrender  is  extraordinary — the  plain-spoken 
arguments  of  Ephialtes  would  not  lack  of  cogency.  '  Why 
should  Athens  furnish  an  army  which  would  simply  help  to  set 
on  its  legs  again  a  power  that  was  a  natural  rival  and  anta- 
gonist to  Athens ;  better  allow  it  to  lie  prostrate,  and  learn 
to  abate  in  pride  and  pretension  by  experience  of  being 
trampled  on.'  There  is  a  more  generous  ring  about  the 
reclamations  of  Cimon,  which  come  to  us  through  Ion  of 
Chios,  his  contemporary  and  friend.  '  Let  us  not  be  indif- 
ferent/ he  said,  '  to  seeing  Hellas  becoming  maimed  on  one 
side,  nor  consent  that  Athens  in  future  should  have  to  draw 
without  her  yoke-fellow.'  It  is  intimated  that  the  assembly 
decided  to  grant  the  prayer  of  Sparta  rather  out  of  deference 
to  this  sentimental  patriotism  than  from  any  considerations  of 
l'"liey,  though  in  truth  such  were  not  wanting  of  sufficient 
force  to  exert  an  influence  even  upon  the  popular  party. 
To  sustain  Sparta  was  for  Cimon  and  his  friends  to  conserve 
a  mainstay  of  the  party  throughout  Hellas  which  wil limply 


xxxi.]  ATHENIAN  AID  TO  SPARTA.  387 

held  on  to  old  traditions,  old  institutions,  to  the  authority  of 
families  of  lofty  claims  to  descent  from  mythical  heroes,  not 
to  say  from  demigods,  and  gods, — to  keep  up  a  bulwark 
against  the  ever-advancing  inroad  of  limitless  democracy ; 
but  support  of  the  grand  confederation  was  also  the  best 
guarantee  for  that  internal  Hellenic  harmony  which  was  but 
indifferently  secured,  and  which  was  a  condition  for  the  pro- 
secution even  on  the  part  of  Athens  alone,  of  attacks  on  the 
barbarians  as  profitable  as  they  were  glorious,  for  which  full 
opportunities  still  remained  on  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  in 
Cyprus  and  even  possibly  in  Egypt. 

Cimon  was  of  all  men  in  the  best  position  to  understand 
what  were  the  feelings  of  the  allies  of  Athens  as  to  their 
state  of  semi-dependence,  and  to  be  assured  that  while  nothing 
would  so  much  confirm  the  heartiness  of  their  adherence 
as  the  sense  wrhich  the  activity  of  Athens  would  convey  of 
their  safety  and  the  extension  of  their  commerce  being  due 
to  continued  exertions  against  Persia,  there  could  be  no  better 
check  to  the  intrigues  of  the  seriously  discontented  than 
evidence  that  Sparta  was  in  such  cordial  alliance  with 
Athens  that  no  assistance  would  come  to  them  from  that 
quarter.  On  the  other  hand,  among  the  usual  supporters  of 
Ephialtes  and  his  party  there  were  those  to  whom  a  display 
of  generosity,  tempting  enough  in  itself,  was  even  more  si 
when,  besides  the  gratification  of  pride  by  the  exhibition 
to  all  Greece  how  superior,  how  indispensable  was  the 
Athenian  union  of  dexterity  and  skill  with  courage,  an 
opportunity  was  proffered  for  interference  in  the  internal 
politics  of  Peloponnesus,  and  a  prospect  of  exerting  such 
influence  upon  the  course  of  the  war  as  would  tell  very 
importantly  on  the  terms  of  its  conclusion. 

According  to  Aristophanes,  Cimon  marched  with  the  large 
auxiliary  force  of  4,000  hoplites ;  other  succours  are  specified 
incidentally  of  Plataeans,  Aeginetans,  and  the  1Mantin<>ans. 

1  Thuc.  i.  102  ;  iii.  54;  iv.  57  ;  Xen.  //.  G.  v.  2   3. 
C  C  2 


388  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  [CHAP. 

who  on  another  occasion,  as  we  have  seen,  when  all  Arcadia 
\\a>  landed  against  Sparta,  stood  l  aloof.  An  anecdote  of  his 
march  gives  welcome  information  as  to  some  conflicts  of 
parties  and  states  about  the  Isthmus ;  his  unceremonious 
passage  through  Corinthian  territory  was  challenged  in  the 
terms,  that  those  who  knock  at  strange  doors  should  not 
enter  without  the  master's  permission.  'Yet  you  Corinth- 
ians,' was  the  retort,  'not  only  omitted  to  knock  at  the  doors 
of  the  Cleonaeans  and  Megarians,  but  broke  them  down  and 
forced  your  way  in  in  arms,  considering  that  all  things  have 
to  give  way  to  the  right  of  the  stronger.'  The  feelings  which 
are  here  indicated  as  already  existing  between  Corinth  and 
Megara  had  arrived  at  their  state  of  excitement  in  disputes 
about  boundaries,  and  were  to  have  important  results  before 
long ;  the  interference  with  Cleonaeans  may  have  been  either 
the  cause  or  the  consequence  of  assistance  rendered  by  them  to 
the  recent  aggressions  of  Argos.  There  is  something  unpro- 
mising at  the  outset,  for  the  cordial  co-operation  of  Dorians 
and  lonians,  in  the  offhand  treatment  and  tone  thus  assumed 
by  the  Athenian  towards  the  firmest  allies  of  those  whom  he 
was  on  his  way  to  assist,  if  not  to  rescue. 

The  consequences  in  fact  of  a  want  of  cordiality  were-  soon 
manifested,  and  were  very  serious  indeed.  '  The  chief  motive 
of  the  Lacedaemonians,'  says  Thucydides,  '  for  calling  in  the 
Athenians  was  their  reputation  for  ability  in  the  attack  of 
fortresses,  as  this  was  the  point  in  which  they  were  them- 
selves deficient;  while  from  the  tedious  prolongation  of  the 
siege  of  Ithome,  they  would  fain  take  it  by  assault.'  They 
seem  to  have  been  quite  as  incompetent  to  estimate  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  task  as  to  execute  it,  and  were  disappointed  to 
find  that  the  city  did  not  fall  at  once ;  disappointed  and 
alarmed  likewise,  as  they  began  to  recognise  what  might  be 

1  Herod,  ix.  35. 


xxxi.]  CIMON  OSTRACISED.  389 

contingent  on  the  continued  presence  of  such  a  force  for  an 
indefinite  time.  The  disposition  of  Cimon  was  one  thing, 
but  that  of  Athenians  under  his  command  and  drawn  from 
a  community  upon  which  he  was  fast  losing  his  hold  might 
be  and  no  doubt  was  something  very  different.  The  Lace- 
daemonians were  startled,  we  are  told,  and  it  can  easily  be 
believed,  at  the  daring  spirit  of  innovation  which  they  wit- 
nessed for  the  first  time  displayed  and  probably  paraded  so 
near  to  them,  and  were  even  apprehensive  lest  the  mere  anti- 
Dorian  tendencies  of  aliens  might  induce  them  to  entertain 
proposals  from  the  besieged  in  Ithome  at  variance  with  the 
views  of  those  whom  they  came  to  assist.  Such  jealousy 
in  such  a  nation  as  the  Spartans  might  be  excited  by  the 
simple  ordinary  demeanour  of  such  allies  as  the  Athenians ; 
and  any  superiority  in  military  dash  and  brilliancy  under 
excitement  of  the  occasion,  when  other  allies  were  looking  on, 
might  reasonably  enough  be  felt  by  them  as  impairing  their 
own  dignity  and  authority,  however  little  it  could  touch  their 
established  reputation  for  valour. 

Their  resolution  was  taken  ;  Athenian  assistance  was  being 
purchased  too  dearly  and  desperately,  and  Cimon  was  dis- 
missed abruptly  enough,  though  with  as  handsome  acknow- 
ledgments as  Spartan  nature  admitted,  on  the  ground  that,  as 
an  assault  was  deferred,  the  aid  of  his  force  was  in  fact  no 
longer  necessary.  But  other  allies  were  still  retained,  and 
on  the  return  of  the  expedition,  indignation  at  Athens  re- 
cognised a  pointed  slight  and  was  roused  to  the  highest 
pitch  ;  there  was  indeed  no  escape  from  interpreting  dismissal 
under  such  circumstances  as  involving  either  an  imputa- 
tion of  treachery,  or — scarcely  if  at  all  less  galling — of 
incompetence  for  the  task  which  had  been  undertaken  with 
such  confidence. 

This  failure  completed  the  reversal  of  Cimon 's  long  popu- 
larity, and  one  more  great  Athenian  turned  upon  the  track 


390  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

by  which  he  had  contributed  to  drive  out  another  still  greater 
before  him,  and  passed  into  exile  under  ostracism  (401  B.C.), 
doomed  but  for  previous  recall  to  be  deprived  of  Athens,  as 
Athens  to  be  self-deprived  of  him,  for  ten  years. 


END   OP   VOL.  I. 


